The photo. Long blonde hair. Uneasy grin. Something silver and shiny at the top of her ear.

It was Molly.

I walked back home very quickly. When we’d seen Johnny snooping around the jeep, I had thought that Jim didn’t know him. But maybe he did. Maybe he knew him well.

Back on my laptop, I found the photo of Molly the press had used. I had only really looked at her before, seen the smile she would always have, the freckles on her shoulder. Behind her were three people. Two of them were looking at the camera too, big greasy grins on their faces. The third had his back to the camera but was looking round. You could only see a bit of his face, the side that wasn’t too birthmarked. But it was definitely there – a splash of wine-red on his temple.

I did my time, Jim had said. And more. As if he hadn’t deserved to be in prison that long.

Or as if he hadn’t deserved to be there at all.

I went to the courtroom that bleak, quiet day, found my way in, weaved past shoulders. I wanted to speak, to defend you, to say to everyone, it’s not what you think. I’d thought that I had my old voice still. I hadn’t known. Not really. And you didn’t see me, and you never knew.

You’d never worn anything but jeans and boots and T-shirts. Your shoulders were clothes-hanger stiff. You hardly ever looked up.

Everything was thin, cheap-looking. The opposite of the sandstone columns outside, the great stamp on the wall. Plain tables and office chairs. The smell of varnish and starched shirt collars. Sweat. Words were ironed flat.

Your brother – I’d met him, twice, an even taller version of you, with a deep, dirty-dishcloth laugh – leaning forwards on the railing, hands clasped, listening to the edges of every answer. Paler than I’d remembered. Next to him an aunt of yours, maybe.

My da and my ma and my brother, lined up against the wall outside, smoking like they needed cancer to come on, fast.

I miss them, of course. I don’t even know where they moved to. One day I went to our house and they had gone.

But I had to stay. Here, where it all happened. Dark woods and water hush. Rain and caves. Waiting for you to come back.

My uncle was there, at the courtroom. He didn’t say anything either. I was trying to make him, but he wouldn’t.

I waited outside the village, thumb out. The sun flared a path along the water, doubling my hangover. It was wearing black clouds like a vintage fur coat. By the time I was dropped at the end of Jim’s track – by two lean gay guys in their fifties who’d been sea swimming, their wetsuits steaming up the back windows – it was as if each bit of crusty old fur up there were dropping off in a long, spiky streak of rain.