‘A little boy, yes. He’s five.’

My heart ached when I thought of Sam. As I fled from Anna, I’d seen his face pressed against the window of her car, which was parked just outside the Co-op. He’d looked so confused. I supposed Sam would live with Alex now. And me, perhaps, in time? Would I be his stepmother, and years from now would he think of me as his mum, would he barely recall Anna? I couldn’t remember much about being five. Nothing to remember. I shut down the thought – I was getting seriously ahead of myself. For all I knew, I’d never see Alex again.

‘We heard there was a row between you?’ said DS Hegarty.

‘Not exactly. She started screaming at me, it was very embarrassing.’

‘And did you respond at all?’

‘No! God. I just left.’

I had been screamed at before, of course, many times, both by strangers and people who knew me. But that was long ago. You get used to it, not being hated. Even with all my experience I had found the onslaught a shock, and as soon as I could get past her I had run into the road, a car swerving and beeping. Did that make me look guilty?

‘Look, they’d broken up already,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong, I only met Alex after they’d split. He came to cut down a tree in my garden, that’s all.’

Pouring him tea. His smile. This is the first time I’ve smiled in months, you know that?

‘Did you see Anna again after that?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t see her body in the woods.’

‘No.’

That was a lie. Would he be able to tell? He laid something on the table – a photograph of something woollen, bunched into an evidence bag. ‘Do you recognise that?’ I peered at it. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I looked up at him, his face carefully neutral. He must know already. He must somehow know this was my scarf, its distinctive green and pink stripes. Marilyn had made it for me on my last birthday, or at least, what she thought was my birthday, because I didn’t tell people the real one. It must have fallen off. Right near Anna. Had I even been wearing this yesterday? I must have been.

I knew then there was no point in lying. Like chess, you had to give things up to save the real prizes. There was still a chance they didn’t know my worst secret. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s my scarf.’

‘Do you want to answer that question again – did you find Anna Devine’s body?’

‘Yes,’ I said again. ‘I did. I found her.’

Casey

Casey

AUGUST 2000