I start to run along the sea front, looking at every face as I do. I don’t recognise anyone. Over the years one of my greatest fears was running into him again – to think that he was dead all that time. I thought he had just left town. So many times I have wondered where he went, who else’s lives he’d turned upside down, when all the time he was stuck here.

I reach the centre of the beachfront. I can go into town or I can keep going to the end. I have been avoiding that part of the beach more than any other. It seems more secluded somehow, more dangerous.

I knew Hannah Torrence, I even saw her the night she disappeared. I didn’t know anything about Mandy Green though. Maybe people her own age might be able to tell me more. I need to see if I can find anyone who knew her. Knowing what this place is like, I expect the places kids hang out are all the same as before. We used to sneak out and go to Blackmore Gardens when I lived here. The gardens run alongside the bowling lawns and between the town and the library. The chances of me finding anyone who knew Mandy there are as good as any. I walk up through town and then through the cemetery into the gardens to check all my old haunts. This town probably has more memorial benches than actual people. You are never stuck for a place to sit. I see a group of teens messing about inside the large shelter and so I approach them. It’s two girls and three boys. They are passing a vape cigarette around and I can smell candy floss.

‘Hello,’ I say, sounding more posh and grown-up than I ever thought I could.

The boy hides the vape behind his back. ‘Hello?’

‘I’m just wondering if any of you guys knew Mandy Green?’

All eyes dart to one of the girls in the group.

‘Allie knew her, didn’t you, Al?’ the boy says immediately.

‘Hi, Allie. Can you tell me anything about Mandy?’

Allie looks down at her hands, clearly uncomfortable. The whole mood inside the shelter has changed.

‘We were mates. We were hanging out in town and I guess I ditched her. We had an argument and she stormed off. No one’s seen her since.’

‘What did you argue about?’

‘Me.’ One of the other two boys in the shelter pipes up, looking both smug and apologetic at the same time, which is quite some feat.

‘They broke up a while back, but she was still upset that I hooked up with him,’ she said, embarrassed. The rest of the group were smirking but to their credit they were trying to hide it.

‘Was Mandy the kind of person to just get in a car with a stranger?’