Will’s number was underneath his mother’s. Robin had it from group texts – photos of Peter, details for birthday parties and dinners – but she hadn’t actually called him since the old days, when she and Rin were sixth formers and he’d used to pick them up from parties, sober as a judge in his little Peugeot. Will didn’t drink, never had. ‘Just not my thing,’ he said but Rin told her it was deeper than that. He was afraid that if he started drinking, he’d never stop.

‘Does he think that for a reason? Does he feel like he’s an alcoholic?’

‘No, but it runs in families; alcoholics quite often have alcoholic kids. He says he can’t risk it.’

Will had been an adult since he was twelve, responsible and reliable as bedrock. While they’d been out getting smashed, he’d been studying. He’d done medicine at Edinburgh and he was a consultant neurologist now, at the Alexandra in Redditch. His wife, Lily, was an anaesthetist and they lived with their son and daughter in a snazzy barn conversion near Henley. Not bad for a bloke whose nickname at the boys’ grammar, where irony was king, had been Thrill. But was he ever actually that boring? He was no Sean Harvey, tearing the place up with his delinquent tendencies and come-to-bike-shed eyes, but when you could hear what he was saying, Will was funny, which had become more apparent as, with the advent of Lily, he’d become more confident and thus more audible.

He answered almost immediately. ‘Robin?’

They spoke at the same time. ‘How are you?’

‘I don’t even know,’ he said. ‘Stunned.’

‘How’s your mum?’

‘She’s … not good. She’s with Peter at the hospital, she was there all night.’

‘The police came to talk to me yesterday – you probably know. They said he broke a lot of bones.’

‘Yes, but the real issue’s the lung. They keep calling it a puncture but it was more of a tear – the end of the broken rib tore the lung. They’ve operated, obviously, but now it’s a waiting game. If he gets an infection, it could all just …’ He trailed off into silence.

‘What happened, Will? What are the police saying?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing. The same as yesterday.’

‘You don’t think Josh did this, do you?’

‘No. I don’t.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t know what else to think, either. If he didn’t, where the hell is he?’

Chapter Seven