I cannot tear my gaze away from the TV because this, I realise, is the first time I’ve seen my house since that night. The night we left.

With my eyes glued to the screen, I reach for my mobile. My fingers tremble as I press Bonnie’s number and lift the phone to my ear. She answers just as it’s about to go to voicemail. ‘Yes?’

‘Have you seen the news?’

‘No. I’m getting ready to go to bed. Luke’s not well and—’

‘Turn it on,’ I interrupt. ‘BBC.’

‘Okay, okay, give me a minute,’ Bonnie huffs. I imagine her strolling into the kitchen and flicking on the small flat-screen that sits on the wall above the counter. ‘Christ,’ she says suddenly. ‘Is that our old house?’

‘They found a body,’ I tell her. ‘Right outside our garden.’

Bonnie is silent for a moment. ‘It might as well be in it,’ she says eventually.

‘I know. But you can tell it’s not. Look at it, it’s just on the edge of the woods.’

‘Bloody hell. Who is it?’

‘They haven’t said. There’s barely any details.’

I hear Bonnie suck in air through the gap between her front teeth.

‘They haven’t even confirmed if it’s male or female. Surely they can tell. They say forensics are all over it.’

‘Well, someone on that island knows who it is,’ she says. ‘Oh my God,’ she adds with a short laugh. ‘Can you imagine them all? They’ll be like vultures.’

‘It must be awful for them, Bonnie.’

‘I know, but seriously. You couldn’t do a thing on that place without everyone else knowing. I got my period and the boys found out within twenty-four hours.’

She was right. I hadn’t been able to dangle a foot over the cliff edge without Mum finding out before I got home. Danny couldn’t fall out of the tree he’d been hiding in without it being whispered around the island within hours, but then there’d always been an interest where Danny was concerned.

‘One of them must have done it,’ she says suddenly. The thought sounds like it interests her, like this isn’t real but simply a drama we’re watching.

‘We don’t know that.’

‘Oh, come on. Who else would bury a body on that island?’

Again she’s right, but I don’t want to think about it. ‘Do you think we know who it is?’ I say. ‘The body, I mean.’

‘Probably not. It’s been so many years since we left.’

I nod but don’t answer.

‘Or,’ she goes on, making the word sound dramatic, ‘it could have been there all the time we were living in the house. We could have been walking right on top of it and we’d never have known. No one believed me there was something off about that place.’

‘There was nothing off about it.’