Letting himself in, he stopped and stared around him. There was a scattering of papers and photos on the floor of the shared hallway, a shiny red ball in one corner, a shoebox on its side. Paul crouched painfully to examine the items. Who were the people in these old photos? What was the significance of the newspaper clipping? Who had put these things here?

“Steph?” he shouted as he used the banister to haul himself upstairs. The flat was cold and still. His parents weren’t there either. He hollered Steph’s name again into the empty living space.

In their bedroom, he saw the wardrobe doors flung open, pairs of shoes and bundles of scarves scooped out from its bottom shelf. Paul stepped closer but still couldn’t make any sense of it.

What had happened while he’d been caught up yet again in the fallout from his past?

A drawer hung open in the kitchen. The drawer where they kept their knives. Paul’s heart kicked as he tried to work out whether any were missing. He was fairly sure their largest kitchen knife was absent. He checked the sink and the dishwasher, a chill taking hold when he failed to find it.

The memory of sinking a blade into Daniel’s shoulder turned him even colder. The idea of Steph doing anything like that was unimaginable, but perhaps she would have said the same about him before all this. Had she been tumbling through her own destructive series of events while he’d been miles away, diving headlong into his?

57.

EMMA

Emma lay on a trolley in a small curtained bay, surrounded by the hellish bustle of the late-night ER. The ache in her leg had been dimmed by strong painkillers, which also turned her brain swampy and her saliva to chalk. It wasn’t clear what she was waiting for—an X-ray, a proper bed, a doctor?

One thing was clear, though, even through the fuzz. The memory of lying on a cold pavement, pain splintering up her side, finally seeing the face of the person she and Steph had been chasing. Emma had still been convinced it was Robin as they’d pursued him. He’d seemed the right height, right shape. She’d been about to scream his name when she’d tripped. For a split second things had ground into slow motion. The figure had twisted back toward them and a streetlamp had shown her, unmistakably, who he was. As time had boomeranged back to normal speed, she’d landed on the concrete with a painful smack. Then the figure was gone and she’d been left winded, unable to believe it.

She remembered, too, Steph kneeling beside her as the blue lights of an ambulance had loomed. Grabbing her hand, putting her mouth close to Emma’s ear. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

Emma had been groggy. “What?”