‘Did anyone find anything?’

‘No, at least, I don’t think so. Mum said the locals didn’t exactly make us feel welcome, and we ended up leaving within days. Afterwards, I had nightmares about the whole thing. Mum said I cried for weeks. She never forgave herself for taking me.’ I shrug. Mum not being able to forgive herself pretty much defined my childhood. ‘About six months later, she said I stopped saying that I was Andrew MacNeil. And within a couple of years, it was like it had never happened.’ Apart from the nightmares.

‘Huh.’ Kelly looks at me, swills the remains of whisky in her glass. ‘So why are you here now? In your emails you said you worked for a women’s magazine and were writing a story. Is that what it’s about?’

I nod, take a surreptitious breath. Get ready to tell my carefully prepared lie, even if I can’t quite look Kelly in the eye while I’m doing it. ‘The magazine got a new editor-in-chief a couple of months ago, and he basically said, if the most interesting thing about you is interesting enough, I’ll let you keep your job.’

‘Bell-end.’

My smile feels fake. ‘And I think this is the most interesting thing about me.’ That much is true at least.

‘Well …’ Kelly blinks. ‘Why didn’t anyone here recognise your name? I mean, I’ve been talking about your booking for weeks.’

‘I was Maggie MacKay back then. Mum got married again when I was ten. Anderson is my stepdad’s name. We moved to England before I went to high school.’ I don’t mention that the marriage lasted less than one school year. ‘I’ve lived in London more than half my life. I have an English accent. I’m betting you told everyone that I was English.’

‘Yeah, okay. But, I mean, why was everyone so pissed off? And why the hell are they still so pissed off?’

I reach for my glass, look at that instead of Kelly. ‘Because, when I came here, I didn’t just say that I’d died. That I’d drowned.’ I drink until the whisky’s gone. ‘I said that I’d been murdered.’ I look out at the night through one of the small windows. ‘By one of them.’

‘Wow.’ And in the following silence, I realise that Kelly has finally run out of things to say.

*

After Kelly leaves, I make myself eat a few slices of toast, drink some water. I take the pill bottle out of my rucksack, and my fingers only hesitate for a few seconds before they twist open its lid. Also progress. I swallow the pill with the last of the water, sit on the sofa. There’s no signal on my phone, not even one bar, and it’s something of a relief. I can’t phone Ravi even if I want to. I look down at my ring finger, absently rub at the nearly faded white line. I know what he’d think – what he’d say – about all this anyway. I might not have seen or spoken to him in months, but I still know. I can always hear him as if he’s sitting right next to me.