Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

He held up his phone so she could see the screen.

It was worse than she could have imagined. It was the photo Alice Barnes – stupid, stupid, Alice – had taken by the side of the river. She had lifted her phone and snapped it before Brenda could get out of shot.

That was all it took. One photo. One mistake.

‘Where did you get that?’ she said, fighting to keep her voice even and calm.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I got it, is all that matters.’

‘It does. I’m interested.’ She needed to stall for some time to think of a way to deal with this, and she needed as much information as she could get.

He shrugged. ‘Nellie sent it to me.’

‘Nellie? Why did she send you a photo of me?’

Alice Barnes must have sent it to her friends, Nellie and Maddie.

Fuck.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What matters is what’s going on in this photo.’

Alice looked at the photo again, and it came to her. The way out was obvious.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘I mean, why are you Brenda?’

She frowned. ‘I’m not Brenda,’ she said.

He pointed to the blonde-haired woman.

‘That’s you,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she replied. She pointed at the other woman. ‘And that’s Brenda.’

‘That’s Brenda?’ he said. ‘No. That’s Alice. That’s supposed to be you. But the other woman is you.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ she said. ‘That summer I grew my hair out and dyed it blonde. When I was away I met Brenda – that’s her – and I liked her look. She cut it short for me and dyed it the same colour as hers – we had quite a bit of fun telling people we were sisters, separated at birth in Australia, with me sent here to live with an English family. This was our big reunion.’

He didn’t reply, his face expressionless.

‘All these questions,’ she said. ‘There’s really nothing to it.’

He shook his head.

‘Alice,’ he said. ‘Why are you lying?’

Nottingham, July 2013

Brenda

She left the pub and sat in the car. In the passenger seat Ned was dozing – or looked like he was – the cap over his eyes obscuring the gaping hole the claw of the hammer had left where his right eye had been.

She felt fantastic. She always did, afterwards. In the run-up the anticipation was almost unbearable, everything sharper, all her senses heightened. It was as though she saw more colours, in sharper relief, heard more sounds, her body primed and ready to do anything.

But afterwards: the release was the most wonderful drug there was.

And she wanted more and more of it.

She took out Alice’s phone and selected Ned’s mum’s number.

Hi. Is Ned at home? We were supposed to meet up but he didn’t show.