Grace looks at Charley’s resentful face. They could be there now, looking up at those monkeys, the sun hot on their faces and all the scents of Africa around them, if things had been different, if Martin had behaved differently.

‘Well, we could have picnics in the park.’

‘Just us?’ asks Blake.

‘If you want,’ she replies, pleased.

‘Nah.’

The flat is untidy. They tidy it together and she tries not to do it again when they’ve gone to sleep. The Co-op have promoted her to part-time manager but she’s at home for meals and she writes alongside them when they do their homework.

‘What happened to Ash?’

She is sitting by Charley who is reading in bed. She smooths her hair off her forehead, the only time she’s allowed to do that now.

‘He drowned, you know that. It was a terrible, terrible accident.’

‘I know that’s what everyone says happened, but no one knows if it’s true.’

‘It may not have happened precisely like that.’ She turns off Charley’s bedside light.

‘Izzy’s been saying it could have been her dad.’

‘What?’

‘She said not to tell anyone but she remembered he’d got angry with Ash the night before. Then he left early the next day, which was the day Ash was found. He could’ve, you know, done something.’ She draws a noisy breath.

‘Charley, who has Izzy been saying this to?’

‘Me and Blake.’

After she kisses Charley goodnight, she stands at the balcony staring out at the sunset. The sky is very clear. April already. Soon it will be another long, hot London summer. Martin wrote about swimming in Kariba Dam as well, and elephants on safari. She didn’t tell Charley that.

Melly said the police interrogated Paul about Ash’s death seven months ago now, and since. They were very sure it was an accident. She must ask Charley not to repeat Izzy’s words in front of Poppy or Sorrel, or Eve; they could be intensely upsetting. She waits till the sun disappears and the lights begin to prick the twilight all over south London. There is no one in the car park below. The warden was right, the gang have gone. Five thousand miles away, it will be dark in Zimbabwe; night descends suddenly, there is no lingering English dusk, which she has grown to love. She goes inside to write, shutting the balcony doors.

Melissa

Paul leans forward over the prison table, his voice is croaky.

‘How’s Sorrel?’

She stares at him in disbelief. His lawyer passed on that he had something urgent to communicate. The requests were repeated; eventually she agreed to go, one final time. Was it just another trick? A chance to ask questions about the little girl he left to die? She shakes her head in silence.

‘Any memories yet?’

She doesn’t reply.

‘Okay. How’s Izzy?’