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‘And it was because she loved you she had to leave.’

What did Reid know that he didn’t?

‘You’ll tell me or I walk away now, Kylian. I’ll ring it in and you can take your chances with whoever drives up that road next.’

‘I can’t tell you, Poe. Your father has to.’

Poe hesitated. If his father knew something about his mother he hadn’t told him, then they needed to have a conversation. But . . . why had he told Reid? It didn’t make sense. Unless . . .

‘My dad’s not a brave man, Kylian,’ he said. ‘You know that. If he had something bad to tell me that he could put off, you know as well as I do that he’d put it off. Indefinitely, if he could. Did it ever occur to you that he told you because he expected you to tell me? That he wanted you to tell me because he knew he couldn’t.’

This time it was Reid who hesitated.

‘OK, Poe, if you’re sure?’

Poe nodded.

‘Did you know that your mother and father went through a period where they saw other people?’

Poe shook his head. It didn’t surprise him. His parents were hedonists. Monogamy had never fitted the profile he had for either of them. He’d always assumed they’d been liberal with their marriage vows.

Reid continued. ‘Your dad told me that they had almost eighteen months apart. He went to the subcontinent to study some sort of mysticism. She went to the States with a group of CND protestors.’

Poe was vaguely aware his father had studied under a guru in India – they didn’t teach the ridiculous yoga positions he used to practise in England. He didn’t know his mother had been to America. He knew very little about her at all.

‘Your father told me that your mother wrote him a letter saying she was in trouble and that he had to go back to England. They might have been apart but they did love each other. He flew back as soon as he could. When they met up, she was two months pregnant.’

The news hit him like a sledgehammer. His dad wasn’t his dad . . . All those years raising another man’s child. On his own. The man was a saint. But . . . that made no sense. If it were true, there’d be no reason not to tell him. That his mother had been promiscuous was hardly earth-shattering. Even in those days, there was no shame in raising someone else’s kid. There was something else. Something worse.

‘Go on,’ he said to Reid.

‘While she was in the States, one of their group had managed to get a brief audience with someone in the British Embassy, and they’d all been invited to a cocktail party afterwards. The way your dad tells it, they were only there to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. A “let’s all laugh at the hippies” kind of thing.’

‘In Washington?’

‘What?’

‘The British Embassy, it’s in Washington, DC.’

‘It is.’

‘So, what are you saying? That my father was some sort of diplomat?’

Reid held off answering.

‘What is it, Kylian?’ he said. ‘Tell me who my father is.’

Still he said nothing.

‘Kylian,’ Poe said. ‘You can tell me. I won’t be angry.’

Reid looked down. There were tears in his eyes. ‘Your mother was raped, Poe,’ he said gently. ‘She went to that party to protest against nuclear weapons and someone raped her.’

Poe’s brain registered no thoughts other than he was shocked. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. The crushing ache of abandonment lifted, only to be replaced by something far worse: guilt. All those years hating her? Wasted years. What must she have thought of him? As if his internal light had gone out, darkness washed over him. He stood trying to comprehend what it meant. His mot

her had been raped? Why had no one told him? He was a policeman. He could have done something about it. The future seemed an unwalkable road now. Where did he go from here? What did he do next?

‘I think I’ll go now.’ He turned to leave – all thoughts of the case forgotten.