James sat down. “Quit. They don’t believe in the cause anymore. Or they’ve had their fun speculating. That’s what most of them were here for, I expect. Frivolous talk—busybodies getting their rocks off. But there’s only so much talk you can do about ghosts and witches and spells and aliens until you have to step back and take stock, I suppose. I’m the only one left who thinks McConnell’s innocent. Even my wife has gone and I can’t even blame her. I don’t blame any of them, not really. What is that saying? ‘There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.’ Who said that? John Stuart Mill, I think. That’s why I think she left. She left the group. And she left me. And she left Marsden. After that, everyone else was gone soon after. If my wife was gone, why shouldn’t they be gone too.”

Sally stepped away from the window. “I have a feeling Robin’s about to get his notebook out, so I’m going to get a drink.” She left without another word.

Robin sat down and did indeed get his notebook out. “That must have been hard—after everything that happened.”

James smiled sadly. “You can only play make-believe so long until you have to accept the reality, I suppose.”

“You accept that it was make-believe?”

“Of course,” James said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t really think I believe in all that stuff, do you? It was about hope. Hope in the human race, if you want to get all grand about it. Hope that one boy couldn’t be so evil. That was what it was for me, anyway.”

“What was your son like?”

James sniffed. “Edmund was a good lad. Not perfect, but wholly good. When he was having trouble at school and could have gone down a different darker path, he found them. They all found each other. Tim, Rachel, Robert, Pru, Matt—and my son. And when they did, everything just clicked for them. They were like pieces of a jigsaw—and when they all got together, you could finally tell what the picture on the box was. Any of them would have happily died for any other—maybe Matt most of all.”

“What do you mean by that?” Robin said.