A police officer who attended the scene of the flat attests to the set-up in that tiny space. I recognize him, vaguely, as one of the first officers who arrived on the scene. It brings those moments back to me. The cold wall against my shoulder as I leaned in the hallway outside the bedsit; that thick, sandy smell in my nostrils; the thin file of papers clutched to my chest. It all began from there, the shock, the trauma of it. The not-sleeping, not-eating. And the more I searched and searched for answers, the worse it became. A downwards spiral, all those layers of fantasy and falsehood. All my threads of reality breaking down.

They show a picture of the bedsit as we found it. The stark reality of how it was. So different from the fantasy Sarah created for herself. Like the zoetrope rising up to speed, I see it suddenly all coming together.

Chapter 38

BACK THEN

Sarah Jane Jones

After the accident, falling from the roof, Jane was in hospital a very long time. Weeks and weeks went by while they fixed her leg. It hurt a lot, but she tried not to cry.

She was never supposed to cry, she knew now.

A few times, Uncle Brian and Aunt Susan came to visit. When they did, they didn’t bring Prin. For some reason Jane’s cousin wasn’t allowed to see her. And Uncle Brian and Aunt Susan never stayed very long.

There were other people who came to see her too. Fiona, the social worker she remembers from before; once, a policeman. When they talked to her, they used her proper name. She ended up being Sarah all over again. The grown-ups had lots of discussions. She could sense them making important plans.

When Jane tried to think about what happened on the roof, the pictures were all fuzzy in her head. She remembered stars and Prin and flying. She didn’t remember what came after that. And if she thought too much, other pictures came up. Ones she couldn’t stand, and couldn’t get away from.

Not when she was lying in a hospital bed.

In the hospital bed, she could hardly move. She could only lie there and think her thoughts. Terrible memories going round in her head.

She had to find a way to stop them. That’s when she remembered what Prin had taught her. You only have to believe it and it’s real.

That was where the real game began.

Lying in that hospital bed for weeks by herself, Jane had a lot of time to practise. There were a thousand details she could create.

The more she practised, the more real it became, and by the time she was well enough to leave and go home – to a brand-new home all over again – what happened really seemed like nothing but a dream.

And her Make-Believe life felt completely real.