Nicky looked again at the page in the notebook. At what she’d spotted written down amid the scrawls. She raised her head. ‘Did you see Melissa using either of the computers before she disappeared?’

Zack frowned as he tried to remember. ‘I can’t … No, wait. I did see her in there. A couple of times, actually. Including on the day before she left.’

Nicky felt a fluttering in her stomach – whether sickness or excitement, she couldn’t tell. ‘Show me,’ she said.

Ben – March 1997

(Two months before his death)

Ben was alone in the southern transept. He was trying to draw again – the chapel’s beams, the pattern of the parquet, the shadows that pooled below the arches along the aisles – but his finger hurt so much he was finding it hard just to hold his pencil. And anyway, his heart wasn’t in it. He kept thinking about Callum, and how cross he’d been, which was nothing compared to how angry Ben was with himself.

He flexed his hand, and tried adjusting the pencil in his grip, but when he lowered it to the notepad again, the pencil slipped, scarring the page with a jagged streak before landing with a clatter on the floor. Ben cursed, and reached to retrieve it, but caught his finger on the seat of the bench and felt the pain carry all the way to his elbow.

He started to cry. He couldn’t help it.

He was such an idiot. Why did he always have to mess everything up? What was wrong with him?

It was no wonder nobody wanted him around. Not even his father. As for his mum … Who was to say she’d wanted Ben around either? Ben had told himself that she did – that she must have – but he didn’t know, not for certain. Sometimes, even though Ben knew it made no sense, he thought it might have been his fault she’d got ill in the first place. That it was because she hadn’t loved him more that she’d failed to survive.

‘Ben?’

Ben whipped his head towards the sound of the voice. Seeing who it was, he hastily turned away again, swiping at his eyes with the ends of his sleeves.

‘I hoped I might find you here. I …’ Father Steiner was moving closer. Two steps from the corner of the nave, he stopped. ‘Ben? Is everything all right?’

‘I’m fine. I got some dust in my eyes, that’s all. When I bent to pick up my pencil.’ Once again Ben ducked towards the floor and, using his left hand this time, retrieved the pencil that was still lying underneath the bench. He wiped his eyes again on the way back up, before holding the pencil aloft to prove his story.

‘Oh,’ said Father Steiner. ‘I see. Well, I’ll leave you alone. If you’d like me to. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’