“Look, let’s go and sit in my car, it’s warm, we can talk there.” But she shakes her head. No. She hugs my sweater to her.

“I saw her, Jon.”

I feel myself frown.

“I saw Grace. Or Zoe, or whoever the hell she is.”

Of all the crazy things I’ve seen and heard today, this is the craziest.

“It was Grace, but it was like she’d become someone else. She was, well . . . I saw her run. I saw her run, Jon.”

I let Cara tell me everything, in one great flow, about Danny’s grave, how she went to the graveyard and how Grace ran into the trees, how she thinks Grace followed a path, but that she was too quick for Cara.

“Grace must have known where she was going; she just disappeared. But it was her, Jon, I know it.” She pauses, finally taking a breath. “You don’t have to tell me I sound mental, I know I do. Please tell me you believe me. I know no one else will.”

I look at her. Even in the gloom her eyes are bright. Everything today, especially the body being found, all of it is too much for Cara. I should never have got her involved in the first place.

“Cara, please, let’s just get in the warmth and talk this through.”

She starts shaking again, this time not only with cold but also with gulping sobs that ripple in waves through her body. “Just say you believe me about Grace.” Her words are broken through her chattering teeth.

I pause for too long. She knows I don’t, knows I can’t.

She turns before I can think what to say, walks quickly back towards her car.

“Cara, wait, I didn’t say I don’t believe you, I just want us both to calm down. When was the last time you ate something, had a proper sleep?”

She stops abruptly and looks me directly in the eye, her gaze like a challenge. She doesn’t blink.

“Grace isn’t dead, Jon, and she isn’t locked up somewhere.”

“But Cara, Grace hasn’t walked for years and she hasn’t had any medication for four days now. It’s medically impossible she’d be on her feet, let alone running.”

“Fine. Don’t believe me. But I’m taking the diary back,” Cara says, her eyes filling.

I glance towards my car, where the diary is stashed in the footwell. Cara follows my gaze and immediately starts walking, shielding her tears from me. I call after her but she doesn’t pause or turn back. I watch as she peers through the window of my car, then curse myself for not locking up as she opens the passenger door and grabs the brown envelope with the copy of Grace’s diary inside. I decide to let her go. She needs to calm down, to rest, and I need some time to think and figure out where we go from here.

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m slumped on my sofa, where I woke an hour ago after a few hours of fitful sleep. I’m still numb with exhaustion but too full of adrenaline to sleep anymore. The window is wide open to the dawn but all I can hear is the morning chorus, no one is out calling for Grace anymore. I close my eyes and rub my hands over my face. Flicking the telly on, I look for something banal enough to send me to sleep again. I can’t find anything so I flick across to YouTube. There’s a scroll bar with “recommended for you” videos to watch on the side. The first is one I’ve watched before, it’s a short video the Wishmakers made when they completed the renovations on Meg and Grace’s bungalow. I let the video play and my eyes blur as Grace’s high-pitched voice chatters away, the camera following her as she wheels herself down the hall.