I pictured the scarf Mari always wore when it was cold – a big, fluffy red one. It was so huge it was like a blanket. I felt her hand in mine when we were at the cinema, her nails digging into my skin when she jumped at something scary in the movie. I remembered when she caught her finger in the door at home, and pretended it didn’t hurt. She swallowed the pain, but the tears in her shiny, beautiful, brown eyes gave her away just a few seconds later. And then I had hugged her.

It was dark outside my basement window when Imo called.

‘Hey champ,’ he shouted into his phone. He was in the car. ‘Get ready,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there to pick you up in three minutes.’

‘You’re going to pick me up?’

There was a slight pause. ‘Your mum didn’t tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’ I asked.

My uncle sighed heavily at the other end. ‘You’re spending the night at my place.’

‘I am?’

‘You are. You need to be with someone tonight, and your mother … well, you know what she’s like about death.’

I knew what he meant. When Gran died, my mother cried for days and days. I knew it wasn’t just because her mother had passed – she’d been ill for years, after all, and Mum had said on more than one occasion that she hoped she wouldn’t go on suffering for long. The reason Mum was so upset, I always thought, was because Gran’s death, the funeral afterwards and all the attention Mum got in the days that followed, made her think of Dad again.

And now, death was here again – and it had come a little too close for comfort. One of the victims was my ex-girlfriend. A girl my mother had met.

‘What about Tobias?’ I asked.

‘Oh, he had other plans,’ Imo said.

I could only imagine what kind. He would probably put a pizza or two in the oven and then sit up in his room all night playing CoD or FIFA or whatever.

‘Not sure I really want to do this today,’ I said.

‘No, maybe not, but you’re going to anyway,’ Imo said. ‘It’s not right for you to be alone tonight.’

I thought about it for a few moments.

‘Come on,’ my uncle said. ‘I promised your mum I’d look after you. Don’t be a spoilsport.’

I sighed and sat down on the bed, stroked my hair back.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘Give me five minutes.’

Imo was sitting in the car with the engine running when I came out of the house. The window on the passenger side was open.

‘Tell me you haven’t eaten,’ he shouted.

To be honest, I hadn’t given much thought to food at all over the past few days.

‘I haven’t,’ I said.