I heard Lily's muffled cry before I reached the study.

Stephen Marsh lived in a terrace house on a quiet street in Bristol with a green front door and a window box that had seen better days.

I drove down on a Saturday, leaving Lily with a neighbour I trusted, telling no one else where I was going.

He answered before I finished knocking.

He was a broad man, going grey at the temples, with my father's jaw and eyes that were entirely his own.

He looked at me for a moment without speaking.

"You look like him," he said finally.

"More than I do."

"Can I come in?"

He stepped back.

The front room was tidy and plain.

Books on shelves.

A dog asleep near the radiator.

He made tea without asking whether I wanted any and brought two mugs to the table and sat down across from me.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said.

"I wasn't sure either."

He wrapped both hands around his mug.

"I want you to know I never wanted anything from your family.

I didn't know about you until I was in my thirties.

My mother told me when she was ill.

I looked into it quietly and then I left it alone.

I didn't want to cause damage."

"But you kept the documents."

"Yes." He met my eyes.

"Because I had a feeling that one day someone would need them.

I don't know why.

I just did."

I told him about Claire.

About what she'd found in my father's study.

About the letter Marlene had written.

About the prepaid phones and the two calls on the night of the accident.

Stephen listened without interrupting.

When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.

"Your mother came to see me," he said.

"About eight months after your father's funeral.

She sat in that chair where you're sitting now.

She was very composed.

She told me that she was prepared to offer me two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in exchange for a signed waiver and a promise of permanent silence."

"What did you say?"

"I told her I didn't want her money." He looked down at his mug.

"She didn't take that well.

She told me I was making a mistake.

That I had no idea what she was capable of protecting."

"Those were her words?"

"Almost exactly." He looked up.

"I wrote them down afterward.

I have the note."

I set my mug down carefully.

"Stephen.

I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me even if the answer is hard."

"All right."

"Do you think my mother is capable of causing an accident?

Of arranging one?"

He didn't flinch.

He didn't look away.

He sat with the question for a full ten seconds before he answered.

"I think she is capable of deciding that a problem needs to go away," he said.

"And I think she is capable of finding someone to make that happen.

Whether she did — I don't know.

But I don't think the question is unreasonable."

I nodded.

"The documents," I said.

"The payment records.

The original letters between your mother and my father.

Can I have copies?"

"I had them scanned two years ago." He stood and went to the bookshelf and came back with a manila envelope.

"I made these for you the day Ray called.

I had a feeling you'd want them."

I took the envelope.

It was heavier than I expected.

"There's something else in there," Stephen said, sitting back down.

"A letter your father wrote to me.

He wrote it six months before he d*ed.

He never sent it — his solicitor found it in his personal papers and forwarded it to me after the funeral.

Your mother doesn't know it exists."

I looked at the envelope.

"He talks about you in it," Stephen said quietly.

"He talks about what kind of man you'd grown into.

He was proud of you." A pause.

"He also says he was afraid of what Marlene would do if she ever felt the family was threatened.

He used that word.

Afraid."

The dog by the radiator shifted in its sleep.

"He was afraid of her," I said.

"Yes."

I sat with that for a moment — my father, a man I had thought I understood, writing a letter he never sent, to a son he'd hidden, about a wife he was afraid of.

"I'd like to stay in touch," Stephen said.

"If that's something you'd want.

I'm not asking for anything.

I just — " he stopped.

"I've been alone with this for a long time."

"So have I," I said.

I drove home with the envelope on the passenger seat and my father's voice somewhere in the back of my mind, saying things he'd never said to my face.

When I got home, there was a voicemail from Marlene.

"Daniel.

I think we need to talk.

I've been thinking about our conversation and I believe you may have misunderstood some things.

Call me when you can.

I love you.

Give Lily a kiss from me."

I listened to it twice.

Then I called Ray.

"She's moving," I said.

"She's trying to get ahead of something."

"I know," Ray said.