‘I’m going to walk back to the car, Chloe,’ he says slowly, a resigned tone to his voice that she’s never heard before. ‘I don’t want you to be frightened. I’ve got my hands up, I’m not going to come anywhere near you. I’m just going to walk back towards the car, OK?’

Chloe nods, then realizes he can’t see her in the darkness. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘OK.’

He’s moving already, walking towards her. She sees the way he moves, his head bent, his shoulders slumped. Something in his stance tells her he’s not a danger now, he can’t hurt anyone ever again. Somehow, instinctively, she is no longer afraid.

Slowly, Patrick walks back to the driver’s door. They face each other, the car between them.

‘Get in,’ he says. Then more gently, ‘Get in and I’ll explain everything.’

She hesitates. Does she want to get into a car with a murderer? But she looks around her, at the deserted road, the two of them in utter blackness, too early for the moon to shine its torch. If he was going to kill her, wouldn’t he have done it by now? She looks across the fields for the house she saw, but it’s now lost in the blindness of dusk; there is no light to run towards.

Patrick indicates again for her to get in. Then, without waiting for her, he slips into the driver’s seat, leaving his door wide open. Slowly she moves back towards her side of the car. She glances in; he is staring at the steering wheel. She takes her place alongside him, but like him, keeps her door open. They sit like that for a while, both doors open, the air whistling through the open car. Finally, Patrick speaks.

‘I am guilty,’ he says, his voice shaken and small. ‘I am. But not in the way that you think I am.’

Chloe swallows beside him. She knows she needs to let him speak.

‘I couldn’t have killed Angie, she was the most’ – his voice breaks – ‘she was the most precious . . . she was . . .’ He clutches the steering wheel with both hands and leans his head in the middle of them.

Chloe looks over at him, the light in the car highlighting his hair.

‘She was everything.’ He starts to cry.

Chloe sits still beside him. She has never seen a man cry like this, she’s mesmerized – mesmerized and horrified. She watches him without making a sound. It’s a while before he recomposes himself. He wipes his face on the sleeve of his jumper and rubs his eyes. It’s a few more minutes before he can speak.

‘It is true that we weren’t at the swings the day that she disappeared and you . . . you were the first person I ever told in all those years. Can you believe that?’