‘The truth? I don’t think you know what that is.’

If I had been paying more attention, if I had been a bit more careful – if I had been a little less upset and angry and bewildered – I might have noticed how close we were to the edge. Just a few feet away.

He took another step towards me.

Chapter 32

32

Daniel

Play with the bigger boys, his mum had said.

But she didn’t know them, not really. Jake and Ethan were OK when grown-ups were around but when they were on their own they were a little bit . . . crazy. Like, scary crazy, like Mason Reese at his school who’d been permanently excluded for setting a firework off in assembly. And grown-ups didn’t really understand the age gap. They said oh you’re nearly ten and Ethan’s just turned fifteen, that’s only a few years, not much really. But it was a lot. It was loads. It was almost half a lifetime. And Jake was almost a year older than his brother.

The two brothers were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, black and khaki, flip-flops kicked off their feet. He’d not really spoken to them much since they’d all arrived at the holiday house. They’d both got massive – at least compared to Daniel – lanky and spotty, size eleven feet and funny deep voices like a dog barking.

He was slightly scared of them, if he was honest.

They’d been wandering around the big field behind the villa – a vinn-yard his mum had called it – but it turned out to be a bit boring. Just rows and rows of grape plants, all running in the same direction. Maybe he would go and find his sister – she was always good for some sport, in one way or another. She was usually by the pool: all she was interested in was getting a suntan. Sometimes he made funny videos of her with Dad’s camcorder, without her realising it – that usually got a reaction. Although she was even more grumpy and cross and boring recently than normal.

Daniel watched the brothers as they tried to get the big outdoor gas heaters lit. They were in the stone gazebo at the edge of the garden, which had two big shiny metal heaters, bigger and taller than he was, and Daniel didn’t really know why they wanted to light them because it was still boiling hot. But he didn’t want them to think he was a goody-goody, so he was content to sit back on his reclining chair and just leave them to it, watching as they pressed and prodded and turned the controls, swearing to each other as they tried to make the flames start.