I feel a new kind of loneliness, staring at Dave’s number and realizing it’s come to this: Dave is my only chance of seeing a friendly face tonight. Dave is a middle-aged policeman I met by chance after a row with Ruth and an angry stomp to the pub. I’ve only ever contacted him when I wanted the inside story on something for an article, but I’m desperate, and Dave’s been through an acrimonious separation so he might understand. Before I can change my mind, I text him: “Pints tonight, mate?” And as I drive slowly away I feel worse than I have in weeks, lonely and very much on my own. Ruth said the meetings with Dr. Bunce would help, but she was wrong this time. Therapy really is complete bollocks.

3

Cara

“You know you can cry if you want to,” Jane, the family liaison officer, tells me as she places a third cup of tea in front of me, the other two poured stone cold and untouched down the sink. She scoops away the ragged tissues Mum’s left littered on the coffee table. I get the impression Jane likes to be in perpetual motion, like she doesn’t want her thoughts to settle. On the sofa next to me, Mum squeezes my hand. Our skin feels damp where we touch. She’s been gripping on to me for over an hour now.

“Car’s not much of a crier, are you, love?” Mum wipes my fringe out of my eyes with her fingertips. Mum’s face is blotched, swollen, her eyes even bluer than normal with all the crying, mascara streaming down her face in dirty rivers.

“She’s like her dad. He never cried. Doesn’t matter though. I cry enough for the both of us, don’t I, love?” She kisses my forehead and I let her hold me; I know she needs to feel me close. She becomes still, stares into space as though she could stare herself out of the room, back to yesterday when her friend was still alive. Her lungs heave a couple of times and I know she’s about to start again.

“Who . . . who could do such a horrible thing to such a good person?” she asks no one in particular. “I can’t, I can’t . . .” but her voice turns to a wail, her tears crash, wash away whatever it was she was about to say. I press my ear against her chest and listen to her heart, imagine little pieces of it breaking away with each racking sob. Jane stands, watches us for a second before her radio crackles and she hurries to answer it in the kitchen. As soon as we got home from my recorded interview at the police station Jane drew the sitting-room curtains so we couldn’t see the journalists and the photographers outside, but we can hear them. Tense voices, the odd cough, and every now and then a laugh, a reminder that this is just another Monday for them.