He stays very calm when he’s cross-examined. Without fear, what comes out is the truth. The process, the sock; he explains them, and does not apologize. To get her to talk was the object, he says. To understand. For when someone or something has killed your child, isn’t that what matters? If there’s only one word you can speak, it is Why. So this is why. And does it make April insane?

The jury, in a couple of weeks, will agree it does not. Today, he will leave with an intuition of that verdict. What he hasn’t foreseen remains sixteen months down the line – and the inkling of that will come fractionally ahead, in a dream. He will wake up and find it strange that he dreamed about April. That they kissed by a swimming pool. Not a kiss, but a snog. Inappropriate enough to make it memorable, cutting through the fog of his early-morning head until long after breakfast. Inappropriate enough that when he hears on the news that April has been stabbed – by a fellow inmate with a sharpened comb – he’ll know, before he’s told, that she bled to death. That she kissed him in his dream to say goodbye.

‌Achilles

There is a light wind coming in off the sea, sweeping across the field like a soft broom, removing the fugginess of the previous evening. Logan and Jules walk hand in hand, despite the narrowness of the path: Logan in front and Jules behind, but their fingers nevertheless entwined. It is, thinks Logan, as if he were towing a secret; for anyone standing directly in their path would see only him, yet behind him is his wife, whose devotion has been rewarded. Achilles runs ahead of them, scouting. Ruffled by the wind, she breaks into small barks of excitement. She finds a stone, snuffling it up from the mud, and drops it hopefully at Logan’s feet. He throws it a few yards ahead of them on the path, and, in only two seconds, the dog is back blocking him. The second time, he lobs it across the deep drainage ditch that runs along the edge of the field. Achilles leaps joyfully into the gully and bounds through water which comes up to her belly, threading through reeds and resurfacing some yards ahead of them with the stone. Logan bends down and throws it again, ker-sploosh. Again, Achilles comes back with it, wet and wagging. Once more. The sploosh of the stone is followed by a larger splash as the spaniel vanishes over the edge of the field. When the dog emerges, her muzzle is completely black with mud.

You foolish creature, says Jules.

The dog’s an idiot, says Logan.

Devoted, says Jules.

To a stone, he replies. I rest my case.

To you, Jules laughs. You threw it, and she didn’t want to let you down.