She shrugs. ‘I feel like you might need a friend. Listen, I need to go, but here, take my number.’ She passes me a card. ‘And just be careful. Like I say, they’ll draw links even where there aren’t any.’

An hour has passed and I haven’t left my room. My mind whirs with images of the Iona I remember, full of life, laughing and joking around our dinner table. As much as it breaks my heart to think she was killed, there is someone else who it will affect even more. I need to tell Bonnie before she hears it elsewhere.

As I walk back to the café and past the white picket fence, I see a crowd gathered beside the police tent on the other side of our old garden. The news must have already spread, bringing out the islanders to swap their theories and chase gossip. It doesn’t surprise me, it’s what they’ve always done, only today it is more overt.

Chastened by Freya’s words, I linger for a moment, watching them, careful to keep my distance. But I have nothing to hide and I refuse to feel guilty over something I have no more idea about than any of them. Eventually I walk around the garden until I’m on the outskirts of the group of mostly unfamiliar faces. Women and men younger than me, some with small children of their own; teenagers; an old couple shuffling their way to the front. A detective is answering their questions calmly, satisfying their need to be fed first-hand details. They look excitable as they chatter among themselves, in contrast to the smaller group who are huddled together by the line of trees that mark the edge of the woods.

These are the people I recognise. Annie is speaking to Ruth Taylor. Both of them look on, still and solemn. To their right is Graham Carlton, his black hat pulled low over his head again, and next to him is another woman who when she turns in my direction I see is his wife, Susan, though she has aged almost beyond recognition. Her thin frame is stooped, her once blonde hair a shock of white. From where I stand her skin looks grey.

My eyes flick between the two groups. The islanders I know and this new, younger group who continue to be animated, their voices rising. And somewhere hovering between them is me.

I glance to my left to where a reporter is being filmed, and when I look more closely I see she’s the one who reported on the body last Friday night. Already it appears the news is being broadcast to the rest of the world, which means Bonnie might already know, and will assume I hadn’t bothered telling her. By instinct I pull out my phone but of course there’s no signal.