The fire erupts with a whoomph, flames leaping towards the sky. The crime scene clothes catch light quickly, the smell of burning plastic in the air. Robin pulls his shirt and jeans off, adding them to the pile, then his socks and his trainers. Robin knows he must look crazy, standing there in the light of the flames in only his boxer shorts, but he doesn’t care. He stares into the fire, feeling mud under his bare feet, listening to the crackle, and at last he feels like everything has been put to rest.

Then the final thing.

Before he drove off, Freya came back out of her house. She held out the disc of the CCTV from the petrol station, containing the footage of him meeting Trevor Stevens on that fateful day. She handed it to him without a word. And now he tosses it on the fire, along with the memory stick taken from Amy Miller’s house.

It melts slowly, bending and charring into nothing.

And he knows it’s over.

Once the fire has burnt down to cinders, he returns to the house. Almost naked, stinking of bonfires, shivering and pale. Liam looks at him, still speechless.

‘Can I have a shower?’ Robin says. ‘And some clothes?’ Liam nods.

Liam cooks him a pizza while he showers, and Robin eats it ravenously. He’s sitting on the sofa, wearing his brother-in-law’s clothes, washing it down with two bottles of beer. Nothing has ever tasted so good. He feels like he hasn’t eaten or slept for a week.

‘Listen, mate,’ Liam starts hesitantly, breaking the silence. ‘Do I need to call someone?’

Robin knows what he’s asking. And he doesn’t blame him. But he doesn’t need the doctors from the Priory. He doesn’t need their drugs, their injections, their therapy.

‘I don’t know much about what you’ve been doing lately,’ Liam continues. ‘But one thing I do know is that Georgia would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you. You were her little brother. She loved you.’ He pauses. ‘I love you,’ he adds awkwardly.

Robin nods, feeling tears threaten, wiping his hands free of greasy cheese on a napkin.

‘I’m sorry, Liam,’ he says at last. ‘I shouldn’t have been such a dick.’

Liam accepts his apology with a slow nod. ‘You were hurting.’

‘You lost your entire family. It was up to you whether you forgave Trevor Stevens or not.’

But Liam shakes his head. ‘I never forgave him, not for a moment. But I needed to do something, to move forward, and that small step helped a fraction. But when I heard Stevens had died…’ His brother-in-law looks at Robin, his face hard. ‘I felt the universe had put something right. Just for a second.’ He gives a long sigh. ‘And you’re here now.’ Liam smiles across at him. ‘Want another beer?’

‘Please.’