‘So, today I got locked inside a car boot.’ He waits. ‘Seriously! Yeah. Mr Marshall…’ Again a pause. ‘Yeah, I totally deserved that.’ It was second nature to him, these one-sided conversations, her replies only in his head. In all the places he feels self-conscious, the classroom, home, pretty much everywhere, here is never one of them.

‘I saw her,’ he says quietly. ‘Hailey. She looked… she looked like her but not. I’ve been a dick, blaming everyone, Tyler, Ryan, Mr Marshall, Mum. Myself. I still blame myself, I guess, but he… Mr Marshall told me that nobody could have made Hailey do anything she didn’t want to and… basically I’m not saying it was her fault but maybe it wasn’t anyone’s. Maybe it’s time to let go. Move on.’

This time when he waits for her voice to tell him that he is right, it doesn’t come.

‘What? Tell me. Please.’ His presses his palm against the stone butterfly, wanting to feel the connection that is strong and broken and impossible to be free of.

‘Yeah. I should apologize to Mum. To everyone.’ This time he wonders whether perhaps it is his conscience telling him this.

‘Anyways, I’d better shoot. Kieron’s been to the hospital today and I want to know what they’ve said. He’s sick… sicker. I’m scared that he won’t make it… that he’ll…’ He can’t bring himself to say the word, not here, in the cemetery, when he is surrounded by it. He swipes his hand across his stinging eyes. The emotions of the day are building up in tears that he won’t release. Not here. It wouldn’t be right to be crying for his life when so many people have lost theirs.

He turns.

Squints.

The sun bright in his eyes.

Is someone watching him?

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Aidan

Aidan can’t pull his thoughts together as he drinks in the contents of the locked room. The walls plastered with fuzzy A4 photos of Hailey. Hundreds of them. The same three images, over and over, creating such a presence it’s as though she’s here, with them. Although there is only him and Julie here it is Hailey who fills the space.

He gently touches a picture with his fingertips.

‘They’re the only ones I had,’ Julie says. ‘I photocopied them in the library.’

On a small table is a candle, melted wax hardened around its rim.

It’s a shrine.

It’s incredibly sad.

‘I keep the room locked so I don’t come in here often, it’s too… much.’

‘You do care?’ he whispers.

‘Of course I care, she’s my daughter.’

‘But why then? Why don’t you build a relationship with her? Why the blackmail? The threats?’