I nodded, placed a hand briefly on his shoulder. “Okay. But first, I want to ask you about earlier. When you were driving my car.”

He looked at me worriedly. “Shit, did I break it? I broke it, didn’t I? I’m sorry. It was your idea.”

I shook my head, “No, the car’s okay.” It occurred to me that he might actually have done some damage to the clutch, but if he had, I hadn’t noticed anything on our drive back from town. “What I’m asking is, was that for show?”

“Was what for show?”

“Your ineptitude.”

“My what?”

“You were totally shitty at it,” I said. “Was that an act?”

“An act? What are you talking about?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have come at this so directly, but there was a theory floating around in my brain. “What I’m wondering is, could you be taking the blame, willingly, for something you never did? To protect someone you care about, maybe? But now, you’re wondering if that was a mistake. You want me to think it couldn’t have been you so I’ll point everyone in the direction of who really did it.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about,” he said.

If Jeremy’s current confusion and his performance in the car yesterday were all part of an act, he deserved an Oscar. The theory floating around in my brain was now taking on water and sinking to the bottom.

“Really, what are you talking about?” he persisted.

I held up both hands, palms forward. “Okay, let’s rewind. Forget I brought any of that up. Let me start again. But I do want to talk about the night it happened. I know that may be hard for you, having to answer questions from me when you’ve already had to tell a hundred people the story. But bear with me, okay?”

He eyed me apprehensively. “Okay.”

“Tell me everything.”

“Everything?” he said.

“Just tell me about that night. No, hang on.”

An elderly couple was approaching. They each nodded and smiled. I said, “Beautiful day.”

The woman said, “If it would just warm up some!”

“Soon enough,” I said. “Come summer, we’ll be complaining about how hot it is.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” the man agreed. They continued walking, and seconds later had disappeared behind us.

“Okay, tell me,” I said to Jeremy.

“Like, everybody was screaming and shouting and someone hauled me out of the car and Mr. Broadhurst was there and Bob was there and lots of other people and then Mr. McFadden, he started pounding on me and they had to pull him off. It was really awful.”

“Go on.”

“And I saw Sian lying there, and I couldn’t believe I’d done that. You keep thinking, if only I could go back in time one hour and change things, you know?”