The twins. I think about the first time we met in that busy café, wonder whether Simon mentioned anything then. Maybe I didn’t pick up on it before, too focused on the article. It’s worth a shot.

As soon as the front door shuts behind me I clatter through the flat searching for my Dictaphone. Simon’s interview tape is still in the machine. I find it at last, under some unopened mail on the kitchen table. Simon’s voice is a squiggle as I rewind the tape back to the moment when he talked about the day Danny died. Then his voice crackles, alive in my kitchen.

“Then I saw those boys. They were only about eight, identical. I thought it was a bit odd they were on their own, running like hares down the path to the cove.”

I rewind, press PLAY again. “They were only about eight, identical.” Rewind, play: “identical.” I listen to Simon say the word “identical” again and again until the word itself seems to break down and starts to sound like another language entirely, and suddenly everything around me feels sharper because it’s starting to make sense. Somehow Grace got involved with these twins, these brothers, the same eight-year-old boys who were there all those years ago, on 6 June 1998. The boys who watched Danny drown.

17

Cara

After I leave Jon’s flat I get the bus home. I don’t like being outside, it makes me feel exposed. I see his thin face in every stranger. For the first time since all this happened, I just want to be home.

Mum seems surprised but pleased when I collapse into her arms. I breathe in her particular mix of hairspray and the pear-drop smell of nail polish. She strokes my hair and I feel a little safer. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been and neither of us mentions the row. I don’t even care anymore if she knew Grace and Meg were lying about Grace’s age, if she knew Grace’s real name. She would have been trying to protect Meg, trying to be a good friend and keep her secrets. There’s no harm in that. Besides, those things are nothing compared to the revelation that Grace can walk, even run. The only thing that matters to me now is that Mum and I are together, safe. It’s a sunny day so Mum draws the curtains in the sitting room and brings me hot drinks while I lie on the sofa. I keep my eyes open. Whenever I close them I sense him, as though he’s waiting for me in the thin space between my eyelid and eyeball. He’s always smiling at me. I’m grateful Mum doesn’t ask any questions. She just seems relieved to have me home. I listen to her whisper to Zara on the phone in the kitchen.

“You were right, Zar, she needed time, just like you said. Repressed trauma.”

I imagine Zara smiling, congratulating herself on being right.

“I’ll keep a close eye on her: she needs to be reassured that Simon can’t get to us. Poor love has had a worse time than any of us, after all. I’m going to take a few days off, stay here with her, if that’s OK with you?”