They let me out on good behaviour in the end, although sometimes I wish they had kept me inside, where I had a bed and hot food. I don’t have those things now. My health is not so good. Time is running out for me. Will you mourn for me when I’m finally gone? I hope so, Laura. I mourn for Bobby.

We still never finished with Bobby, did we? That’s why I am sending his school badge. I am sorry there is so much blood on it. I tried to clean him up but it was difficult, and I got frustrated. I am worried you have forgotten about him, and me. I have missed you. I feel like maybe I love you, although it is such a shame you had to grow up so much.

I am sad that you got married Laura. I thought our connection was the special one. But now you have someone else. I’m not sure I can allow it.

Perhaps if you come and see me we can talk about it. I’m old, as I said. I feel that it’s finally time. I would like to meet at the place I buried Bobby. Alone. No Police- you know the rule.

Join the dots, and come soon. Come by seven-thirty in the morning, in three days’ time. If you don’t, I will come after your boy, and I will take him like I took Bobby. And then, I think it quite likely that I shall die. I’m sick, you see.

Don’t be angry with me, Laura. I feel good knowing that despite losing Bobby, I have been able to write to you, and you know I exist. That must mean something to you too. I think ours was always the real love story, Laura. Not me and Bobby.

Yours with respect (and love)

X

After the X, a list of digits and symbols marched down the paper, a bewildering string of them, and once again, as they had when she was young, they danced, and leapt across her vision.

Coordinates.

24.

‘Laura? What is it?’ Said Frank, looking at her over his newspaper as she sat there dumbly holding the letter, falling, falling, the only way being down.

At first, she didn’t reply, but then, she took a deep breath. ‘Nothing,’ she lied, brightly, folding the letter and putting it into her shirt pocket. Because once a secret has grown old, and burrowed itself like a tick under the skin, it is harder to dig out than she could fathom. Frank side-eyed her, but didn’t push the matter. It was her birthday, and he wanted her to have a nice day. Frank was like that. He put others before himself as a matter of principle. Doing so gave him a great and lasting satisfaction. She had thought several times that Frank would have made a good priest, or vicar. She felt now, after years of marriage, as she had felt then, when she’d first met him: that Frank was on a mission. He used the accident he’d had as a child as a springboard, diving into a pool of vocation, striking out confidently across the choppy waters towards anyone he found drowning. Frank was the sort of person who would die to keep you afloat. She had tried to do the same, over the years, for others, only it was a much less convincing display than Frank’s. But she tried.