He got under the covers and tried to warm himself. Although he hadn’t bothered closing his curtains before bed, the room was in complete darkness. Nights out here were pitch black if the moon was hidden, not like in cities where the darkness was always diluted. Tom had forgotten the heavy texture of night on the islands.

Once more he tried to focus on the memory, but it wouldn’t stay still for long enough. He hated the indistinctness of the past; it frightened him. Above all, it seemed cruel to him how vividly the feelings themselves remained—terror, shame—even when so many of the details were slippery. It meant he suffered all the anguish of the past without it ever being eased by an adult’s detachment. Turning on his side, he pulled his knees up and closed his eyes.

When he woke again, it was dawn; the room was half lit by weak morning light. Tom sat up and let everything come back to him. His head felt a little clearer as he went downstairs to make a cup of coffee, relieved to find Malcolm wasn’t up yet.

Standing barefoot by the kettle and looking out at the dim moorland, Tom decided the most likely explanation was that his mind had conflated two similar incidents. He thought the row over the laundry probably had taken place years, and not days, before the murders. But perhaps there had also been an argument a couple of days before the killings—just not one he remembered now. Then, later, after everything went so wrong in his head, he had muddled the two together.

Once it had come to him, the idea did not surprise him. His mind was too intent on holding on to another memory: the terrible one that took up his entire core. Tom began to see how this had eventually distorted all his other memories. But it seemed no less than he deserved, that his mind had latched on long ago to that single moment and decided to keep it clear and sharp at the expense of everything else. Over time, his other memories had been twisted around the unbearable one until they all became warped by its ugly shape.

18

It rained hard that morning, and the wind was furious. Malcolm went out to work with Robert early, leaving Tom on his own. Having prowled around downstairs for a couple of hours, Tom accepted that it wasn’t walking weather; he would be blown off his feet. But he didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t feel steady today.

For a while he tried to read, and when he couldn’t sit still any longer, he went up to his room and listened to the wind sweeping around the sides of the cottage and the rain beating against the windows. He hoped Malcolm wasn’t up on the cliffs today.