‘Just go, Grace.’

That’s what she said. Three words. But each one was a bullet to my chest. I could imagine how those people in Iraq felt, the ones he had to kill. Standing in the street while shots come at you so quickly you don’t even realize it until you’re hit and you die.

But when I got back here, when I saw the blood on the ground and on my journal, I saw what Isobel had seen this morning. I wasn’t like her or any other normal girl and I’d been fooling myself in thinking I ever could be. Because no matter how hard I try to be like them, to see life as they do, to react to situations like they do, to be calm and controlled and respectable, it’s no use. It might not have been like that at the beginning, and had the dead mother in the desert raised me instead of him then maybe things would have been different. But she didn’t. He did. He made me this way and in doing so condemned me to hell.

I can smell the doe’s blood as I write this. It stinks of soil and metal and death. He told me about the smell of death when I was a bairn, told me how once you’ve had it in your nostrils it never goes away. And now I know what he means.

33

Lisa

‘Mummy?’

I look up and see Joe standing in front of me. He has dressed himself in yesterday’s clothes and is holding a toy lion in his hands.

‘Why you in bed?’ he says, looking at me quizzically. ‘You tired?’

The simplicity of the question melts me. Yes, Joe, I am tired. I’m tired of running like this, tired of messing up again and again. But something about the way he is looking at me, his eyes full of trust and innocence, makes me get out of the bed.

‘I was just having a little rest, baby,’ I say, sweeping him up into my arms. ‘But I feel better now. Wow, haven’t you been a good boy, getting yourself dressed.’

He nods his head and looks down at his crumpled sweatshirt and joggers as if to inspect them.

‘Now, we need to get some breakfast and brush our teeth,’ I say as I carry him into the kitchen. ‘And then we can …’

My phone is lying on the table. I pick it up and look at the time: 11.57. It was early morning when I threw Jimmy out, the sun hadn’t even come up. How long had I been asleep? I look at Joe and shudder as I think of him wandering around this place by himself all morning. Anything could have happened.

‘Pull yourself together, Lisa,’ I mutter to myself as I head to the scullery to find the bucket Isobel used for collecting water. ‘Right, Mr Joe,’ I say, putting him down on the floor. ‘We need to take this big bucket and go get some water from the lake. Will you help me?’