‘Let me guess. I was found behind the pavilion with him? On my knees, stark bollock naked except for my gym shoes? You heard there were two other guys there as well? Is that the story?’ She chewed at her bottom lip, hanging on an answer.

‘I never heard that.’

‘What, you heard it was three other guys?’

‘No.’

‘Four!’

‘I never heard anything.’ This was true. I’d heard several stories about her around school, but never that one.

‘Well, it’s all bullshit. I’m sure you know that.’

‘Of course.’

And of course I believed her. But she’d still thrust upon me the image of her, in just her gym shoes, on her knees. Standing up any time soon would be out of the question.

‘We kissed a couple of times, that’s all. How fucking boring is that story?’ she said, laughing as she spoke.

‘You still miss him, though?’

She gazed upward at me as if peering over a pair of sunnies. ‘Like mad. Like crazy, Ollie. You ever lose someone that no one will ever come close to replacing?’

I stared over the calm of the pond, watched as a distant squirrel shot up a tree on the far side. I don’t tend to talk about it.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I did.’

I thought I could smell Aunty Kaye’s perfume from somewhere among the damp bark and pollen. There was a warmth in my stomach. Telling Sophia felt good in a way that telling anyone else never had.

‘Shitty, isn’t it, mate?’ she said, with a knowing nod, an instinct not to pry.

‘Did they ever catch the guy that did it?’ I asked.

I could remember stories about Kenny on social media at the time. There’d been arrests, some graffiti around town protesting the innocence of the accused, but I didn’t recall how it all ended. Later that evening, I would go online and refresh my memory. He’d been in the pub with some other guys from our school. They’d stopped at the twenty-four-hour garage at the edge of the estate to get snacks. A brawl kicked off on the pavement just outside, next to some dormant roadworks. It was a single blow to the head with a shovel that killed him.

‘You heard people talk about the wall of silence?’ she asked. ‘No one ever wants to stand up and be the one to break it. Someone somewhere lives with what they did that night.’

‘Was he bullied?’