Later, when Frank went out to run some errands, she read the letter again.

Join the dots, X had said, and she analysed and re-analysed this several times before it clicked, and then she smacked her hand to her forehead hard in an act of realisation.

Of course!

She dug around under her comfortable king-sized bed for the storage box she kept there, full of memories, clippings and correspondence. The letters from X were buried at the bottom of the box, along with her old map and compass. She had kept it all. Maybe because, deep down, her subconscious mind had known this day was coming, after all.

She spread the map out across her bed, and unfolded each letter she’d ever received from X, reminding herself of the contents, shaking her head and muttering to herself the whole time. She’d never taken a step back from it, like this, and looked at the letters all together, as a complete entity. She’d only ever treated each one as an individual step towards downfall, but now…now, here on her bed, was a finished jigsaw puzzle. A portrait of a man. What kind of man? A criminal, she knew that now. A repeat offender? Most likely a paedophile, too, which is something she had never openly admitted to herself until now. What a shame you had to grow up, he’d said. She shuddered as she remembered wrapping up a pair of her knickers for him. And the tooth. The hammer. The blood. What had he done with it all? Did he have a memory box too, full of all the pieces of her she’d sent him?

She realised, as she looked at it all laid out across her patchwork bedspread, that over the years, all she’d done was exacerbate his obsession with her by alternately rejecting him, trying to run from him, and then giving in to his demands. She realised now, with the advent of maturity and the wisdom that parenthood had afforded her, that X had manipulated her from a young age. He had preyed upon her guilt and confusion, and twisted her fear around his strange declarations of love for herself, and for Bobby. And Laura had bought into this fantasy narrative, bought a map, gone on bus journeys, smashed a hammer into her own mouth and pulled a tooth for him, even written back. All grist for his sordid mill. Laura had been the object of X’s desire for all these years, not Bobby. Laura.

Laura.

And here he was again, still trying to write their story.

Still no tears. Laura shook all over, and still no tears. Why can’t I cry? She thought with desperation.

Why?

Had there been others? She thought it likely. X was obsessive by nature. His letters also had a curious air of being practised about them, like maybe he had honed his skills on someone before her. Had he sent letters to Bobby in the years before he disappeared? She thought that likely too, although no mention of it had ever been made by the Eveleighs.