I stared back at her, utterly nonplussed. She made an exasperated noise in her throat.

‘Look, we were tripping off our faces, and a woman had just been torn to bits by a train because of Liam. It was terrifying. I swear to God we were just demented with it all. So we ran.’

I still said nothing and this was, rightly, taken as a judgement.

‘I was fucking nineteen, Ell!’ she cried. ‘A kid! Anyway,’ she sniffed loudly, ‘I thought that once we had the stuff out of our systems that we would go to the police.’

‘But you didn’t.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘No,’ said Anya quietly, ‘we didn’t. It almost felt like a bad dream the next morning when I woke up in my bed in college. For a little while that morning I convinced myself it hadn’t happened. But then I saw it in the local paper.’

She paused, then said, ‘I didn’t think there was anything further that we could do.’

‘But, sweetheart,’ I said, exasperated. ‘Don’t you think that woman’s family would have wanted an explanation? They probably think she killed herself.’ I laughed, a harsher sound than I intended. ‘Guess they have something in common with Michael Copeland’s mother.’

Anya didn’t respond.

‘So,’ I said, unbelievably weary all of a sudden, ‘what happened to Liam then? Where is he now?’

Anya puffed out her cheeks. ‘He came to see me, a week or so after. He was in a proper state about what he’d done. Told me he was going away – for good. I didn’t ask where because I didn’t want to know.’

We sat quietly for another few moments, both lost in our thoughts.

‘How did Michael end up with that cutting, then?’ I said. ‘Did he know what had happened?’

Anya lowered her head and stared miserably at her feet. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a tiny voice. ‘He didn’t say anything about that. I have no idea why he had the cutting. I don’t think Liam was very close to him, but maybe Liam kept it for some twisted reason.’

‘Christ,’ I said, then, ‘Where do you think he is now? Liam, I mean?’

Anya shrugged. ‘My honest feeling is that he’s dead. As I said before, probably an overdose somewhere in southeast Asia.’

Previously she had said he had probably fallen foul of people he knew in the UK but I let it go.

‘Wasn’t there CCTV or anything then?’ I said. ‘At the station?’

‘No, I guess there wasn’t,’ she said gently. ‘Not everywhere then. I did think about going to the police, you have to believe that. But I was too scared. And anyway … Mum and Dad told me not to.’

And there it was, again. Of course they’d known and I hadn’t.

Anya looked down at her hands.