“Ruth! Ruth, wait!” I shout.

She’s not quite running. Instead she’s walking at a frantically fast pace that is somehow more dramatic than running. I’m a good few feet behind her. Tiny pebbles on the pavement sting and nip at my feet, making me tiptoe. I gain on her as she searches for her keys and, finding them, clicks her car unlocked. I fall on the passenger seat door and then throw myself in, next to her. She doesn’t look at me. She’s one of those people who sometimes finds drama funny, Jakey can always make her laugh when she’s trying to tell him off, but this gravity is new. She seems too weary, too worn out to laugh. The muscle in her neck pulses.

“Ruth, look, I’m so sorry. I was held up at work—”

“I listened to the news on the way here, Jon. I know that poor girl’s clothes were found. I know you’ve been to the Point. I know that’s why you were late. You’re choosing them, even though they’re probably both dead now. You’re still choosing them over us.”

“I’m not choosing them, I’m just finding out some stuff that suggests things weren’t quite as they made out . . . They’d been lying, Ruth, they’d all been lying and I need to find out why. Today is the fourth day Grace will go without her medication—”

“She’s probably dead, Jon! They’re probably all dead, they don’t have to worry about their problems anymore, they don’t exist! But your son and I do, our problems are real, very real, but you still, you still choose them.”

It’s almost a relief to hear her shout at me. She’ll start crying in a moment.

“Ruth, look, I think I might be able to find out what happened to Meg and Grace that night—”

“You’re calling her Meg now? Like she was your friend? Get out,” Ruth says, still pointedly not looking at me. “Get out now or I’ll call the police.”

“Ruth, don’t be nuts . . .”

She rummages in her bag, pulls out her phone, makes me watch as she dials the police.

“Shit, OK. I’ll go.” I open the passenger door a couple of inches and Ruth turns the key in the ignition. She always leaves the radio on when she drives, and a news reporter is reading the headlines: Breaking news this afternoon: South West Police have confirmed that after an extensive manhunt, Simon Davis has been taken in for questioning in connection with the murder of Megan Nichols and the disappearance of their daughter, Grace Nichols . . .

Ruth clicks the radio off and, turning to me with a sad smile, says, “Look at you. You can’t wait to get out of here now, can you? To find out what happened from your buddies in the police. What is it that makes you so obsessed with them, Jon? They’re a family, that’s all. A family who couldn’t survive the terrible tragedy of their son’s death and it fucked them all up. It happens every day—families falling apart. Strange how clear it is when it happens to someone else’s family and how hard it is to see when it happens to your own.”