To think, Ben had spent most of the past four days trying to convince himself that he was wrong. He’d even considered going back to Father Steiner’s bedroom on his own, at a time he knew the chaplain would be in the chapel. Maybe if he planted the photos the way he was supposed to, he told himself, the others would like him. Maybe … maybe it had all been a test, one he’d come so close to passing.

But that kiss. Melissa’s lips …

He was kidding himself, he’d realised. Again. And now he was decided. He would get rid of the photographs once and for all, and then this whole thing would be over. He could go back to being him. Just him. The way it had always been, and the way he knew now it would always be. It wasn’t so bad. In fact, in many respects it was easier. At least when the entire world was against you, you always knew exactly where you stood.

Ben wiped his eyes.

He gathered the photos together in a pile, and tried to focus on how best to get rid of them. He might have burned them if he’d thought to bring a lighter – if he’d been careful, he could probably have swiped Callum’s – although there was a risk someone passing would see the smoke. He could venture deeper into the woods and throw them into the lake. But what if they washed up on the shore? Better, Ben thought, to bury them. To let them rot beneath the earth, exactly like the bodies in the surrounding graves.

He cast around, ignoring his instinctive unease and searching for the ideal spot. Under one of the slabs he was sitting on would be perfect. Nobody would ever find them there.

After checking the clearing to make sure he was alone, he set the pile of photographs to one side, and bent to lift the nearest stone. But it was lodged in tight, almost as though it had been cemented to the ground.

He tried another, smaller slab, and this one came up surprisingly easily. Too easily for Ben’s liking. He needed something heavier, like … there. The largest of the slabs was cracked, meaning even if he couldn’t lift the whole thing, he would probably be able to prise up the part that wasn’t wedged into the earth.

Straddling the stone, he tried to work his fingers into the crack. It was already several millimetres wide, and when he felt a slight draught, he wondered if he could simply post the photos through, three or four at a time. There was clearly a cavity of some sort underneath. Plenty of space, probably, for a handful of photographs.

But when he turned to pick up the photos to start sliding them through, something made him stop and turn back.