‘Who killed him?’ I asked. Fiona and I sat very still, all our attention on Gwen.

‘The Pale Child.’

Fiona shot me a look. I felt my spirits sinking with the realisation that Gwen wasn’t quite all there. Maybe it was the years of alcohol abuse, but her relationship with reality seemed non-exclusive.

‘Who is the Pale Child?’ I asked.

‘Nobody knows who she is, but she was there that other terrible night too. When Lucas died. I told Daniel not to associate with those Nightingales. I didn’t want him to get fixated. I know what he can be like. Those girls were so pretty. Violet’s the same.’

‘Was he fixated on someone that summer?’ I asked.

‘Bex, of course. It was all about Bex. And then Daniel hurt his back and went to hospital, it was such a terrible night. His clothes all covered in mud. I don’t know what went on that night but it was an awful thing, and he would never tell me.’

I felt the strange lightness that I sometimes get in my head when we’re near to a breakthrough. ‘His clothes were covered in mud?’ I pictured the map. The little gravestone. What had happened that night? Was this the secret in the village? The reason that Daniel, Anna, Gary and Kirsty were forever bound together, stuck in Gritton.

‘Yes, covered in mud. And Daniel would never say why. He wasn’t the same after. I know I drank too much in those days, after Charlie. Before I found a better way. But I remember how he changed.’

‘You said you didn’t want Daniel to associate with the Nightingales. Why was that?’

‘Those girls had the devil in them, especially the older one. The way they got the boys doing their bidding. I don’t know what happened that night, but it would have been down to them.’

‘Have you any idea what happened? Why Daniel’s clothes were so dirty?’

‘I knew it was bad. So bad I had to leave the village and never come back. So bad I had to stop having contact with Daniel because what if I found out? I didn’t want to tell on my poor boy. They’d find a way to blame him, just like he’s being blamed for Violet. So I didn’t say anything. But now he’s missing and I’m telling you. So you can work out the truth and use it to find my boy.’

Jai chucked the remains of his tea into my spider plant in an over-flamboyant manner, and leaned against my windowsill. ‘We know Daniel has these fixations. He was fixated on Bex. Maybe he was fixated on Violet in the same way.’

‘He obviously didn’t kill Bex,’ I said. ‘And according to the DNA evidence, he wasn’t her rapist.’