‘Then?’ I opened my eyes and saw Mohktar was checking my original statement.

‘She came round to my side of the bed and picked up my dress…’

‘How did you know it was your dress?’

‘I’d dropped it on the floor beside me and as she pulled it over her head I saw my torn pocket. Saffie asked me again to go outside with her and I said, “In a minute”. I heard her moving a chair to the window, but I didn’t think she would really go out without me…and I went back to sleep.’

‘When you woke again was the room cool? Was it evening?’ I closed my eyes again. Despite the overhead fan in the room it was hot and sticky. I felt odd. I thought hard. No, it was still hot that afternoon and I couldn’t find my dress and I…

‘Nikki?’

‘No, it was still warm. I got up to go into the bathroom, which wasn’t shuttered, and I found Saffie’s dress there and…I put it on…’

The sweat began to trickle down the inside of my dress. It was as if a fog that had suffocated that whole afternoon was slowly clearing. ‘I put the dress on and then I went back into the bedroom. The shutters had blown nearly closed again and it was dark. I got onto the chair and pushed back the shutters just a little to see out…’

I listened to the silence in the room and it frightened me. ‘I saw Saffie in the distance. She was running towards the rocks, chasing crabs…’

‘Anyone else on the beach?’ Blythe asked me quietly.

‘No.’

‘Then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you go out after Saffie?’

‘No!’

‘But you had put your dress on,’ Blythe said. ‘Did you get back into bed with your dress on? Did you leave the shutters open?’

‘I don’t know!’ I shouted. ‘I don’t know what I did next.’

‘Nikki,’ Mohktar said gently. ‘You do not say these things in your original statement.’

‘What did I say, then? What did I say?’

‘Nikki,’ Blythe said. ‘Close your eyes, concentrate. Just tell us what you remember now.’

‘I can’t, it’s all a blur. You can’t expect me to remember after all this time…’

Fleur had been watching my face in silence and she suddenly leant forward. ‘Nikki, you’re trying to avoid saying that you tried to wake me that afternoon to tell me that Saffie had gone out, but you couldn’t wake me, could you?’

Fleur always knew when I was lying or avoiding the truth. The tears sprang to my eyes.

‘Did you try to wake me?’ Her voice was just a breath.

‘No! I didn’t,’ I lied. ‘I know…I know I should have done.’

I looked at my hands, then up at Mohktar again and his eyes were not those of a policeman. I kept my eyes on his face and told the truth that was surfacing. ‘I remember lying on top of the bed, waiting for Saffie to come back and for the house to wake up. I might have slept for a bit. Then I got bored. I got out of the bedroom window…I went a little way down the beach…but I still couldn’t see Saffie, then…’