Photoman, I couldn't agree more. According to Jon Bokenkamp, we're supposed to 'read between the lines' for clues as to who Red really is, and I'm guessing a lot of those lines are meant to be spoken by Red himself. If he was Ilya, he'd probably be denying it. But he's not, hence the coy word games with Cooper, Liz and anyone else who doesn't actually know the truth.