“Visiting family?” I say, more of a question than a statement. It sounds like total bollocks, but she just nods again. She knows it’s none of her business. She puts my bag of crisps on the bar and I hand her coins from my pocket before she turns back to her friend. I pick up a sticky menu and pretend to study it for something to do. My head throbs, but being here, distracted from my thoughts of Grace, seems to be easing it slightly. It hits me that the barmaid and her friend probably know the Craig twins—one of them could have sat on the stool I’m on right now. I hate thinking about Robbie, the man with the tattoo. The thought that he has a brother, a twin, sends a trickle of fear down my spine.

I finish my drink quickly and am about to ask for the painkillers before heading back upstairs when the barmaid’s friend runs her fingers through her short brown hair and says, “Course, I tried to tell those lads we’ve had two deaths because of the rip currents in that one cove, but did they listen? Did they heck. Just shrugged like I don’t know what I’m talking about, like I haven’t lived here my whole life, and then ran off towards Raynor with their surfboards.”

My stool creaks as I strain to hear them. The noise makes both women look up at me, surprised, as though they’d forgotten I was there. I know it would be easier, safer probably, to ignore the sudden lick of curiosity in my stomach, to quietly go back up to my room and stare at my phone until either Jon sends me a photo or I fall asleep. But I know I won’t, and besides, the friend raises her eyebrows at me like I’ve just elbowed my way into their private chat.

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help but hear,” I say, “but I’m from Summervale, near Ashford. You probably heard about Grace Nichols, the disabled girl who was kidnapped? Meg, her mum, was murdered?”

Drip, drip.

Both women listen, their eyes round, expectant as I keep talking.

“Well, I knew them a bit and I’m just curious. Is Raynor Beach near here? That’s where Grace’s brother, Danny, died, like twenty years ago, wasn’t it?”

I watch the two women thaw with every word. Now a connection has been made, their smiles open up like arms flung wide. The barmaid’s friend shuffles her stool towards me. She has a short list of names tattooed in scrolling text on her upper arm.

“Oh God, you knew her, did you? That Grace Nichols? Honestly, when I heard what happened to her, I thought I was going to be sick, and to think it was her own dad too. Thank God he’s locked up, that’s all I can say. I just wish they could throw away the key. Bloody nutter. I bet everyone in Summervale’s spitting with anger. Imagine if anything like that happened round here, Gillian, to one of ours, we’d all be spitting, wouldn’t we?”