The only concrete thing was the address on the paper. It was a new focal point. A shred of hope. Paul shook his head forcefully, dislodging the despair that was trying to overpower it. He hung up on Emma and tiptoed out of the flat.

Outside the house, just as he was debating how best to reach the address without his car, he ran into his parents.

“Paul!” His mum threw her arms around his neck, her feet almost leaving the ground with the force of her hug and their difference in height. “Where have you been? Are you hurt? What’s happened?”

He disentangled himself. Her questions accelerated and he had to cut her off. “Mum, Dad, I’m sorry but I have to go.”

“Don’t disappear again, Paul,” his mum said, with fervor, almost anger. “Stay here with us. We need each other, and Freya needs us all.”

“I’m sorry. Can I take your car? I’ll explain later. Just please stall George for now. Make something up . . .”

“Paul!” His mum looked anguished, but she relinquished her car keys into his shaking hands.

59.

KATE

Twenty-five years earlier

I’m wearing the same dress I wore to Nick’s funeral. It’s the smartest thing I own—it was either that or my school uniform. The dress is looser than when I last wore it: I drown inside the dark fabric.

We sit in a room with a rust-red carpet and paneled walls: me, Mum, and a man who works for the court. The man has already talked us through what will happen, and let us read our original witness statements as a reminder of what we said all those weeks ago. Now the air snaps with the tension of waiting, a feeling that seems to have held me hostage for so long.

The door whines and another man appears, a mustached clone of the one sitting with us. “Kate Thomas, we’re ready for you.”

I shoot a glance at Mum, who gives me a small nervous smile, then follow the man down an echoey corridor, my school lace-ups slapping the floor.

He opens another heavy door and we’re in the high-ceilinged courtroom. Heads turn from all sides to watch me come in. My eyes sweep without focusing, and I catch sight of Becca in the dock with a glass screen around her. The whole place smells of furniture polish; it gives me a head rush like I’ve inhaled a vat of it.

“I do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”