‘Oh, Brody,’ Anna said, her voice finally emerging scratchily from her throat. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘We were all numb with grief to start off with. You know what it’s like…’

Anna nodded, unable to talk without sobbing, so she held it in. Even though she knew Brody couldn’t hear her, she felt it important that she agreed, and she hoped he could feel it rather than hear it.

‘But after a few months the numbness wore off and I got angry. I blamed my parents – for having the pond, for not having fenced it in to make it safe, even though I knew this was their first grandchild and it probably just hadn’t occurred to them. I said horrible things, Anna. I cut them off, refused to speak to them. And that was a despicable thing to do, to blame them, but I was being selfish and pig-headed. What else could I do? I had to blame someone. And I certainly hadn’t been able to face laying the blame where it should.’

‘Brody…’ Anna said, with a warning tone in her voice. She had a feeling she knew where this was going.

‘It was my fault.’

There. He’d said it. Anna wished she could reach out and touch him.

‘I shouldn’t have drifted off in my own imaginary world. I should have kept hold of her when she tried to wriggle away. I should have been faster… looked harder…’

‘Oh, Brody,’ Anna said again. ‘You know that’s not true, don’t you?’

‘No,’ he said baldly. ‘And I’m not the only one who thought so.’

‘Did your wife blame you too? Is that why she left?’

‘At first,’ Brody said. ‘While I was still blaming my parents. But later she softened, said it was an accident. She wanted us to go through it together, share our grief, but I couldn’t do it. It was as if I had a wall around me. I couldn’t let her in. I couldn’t let anybody in. It was the only thing holding me together, you see, the only thing keeping me sane.’

‘I know,’ Anna said gently. She hadn’t had a wall, exactly, but she’d had her own coping mechanism: her numbness, her refusal to engage with the world. She sniffed, and then she sobbed. It had all built up, and now it was coming out noisily. So much for not letting on to Brody.

‘Don’t cry for me, Anna,’ he said with so much softness that it only made her cry harder. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

Anna grabbed a tissue from a packet in the centre console of the car, blew her nose, and composed herself. Alongside the aching sadness, his words prompted something hot and fiery inside her. Now she was angry with him too. ‘After Spencer died, I kept questioning myself, moving all the variables around, as if his death was a game of chess I could win if I could only get the pieces in the right place.

‘What if that driver hadn’t been drunk that evening? Or hadn’t drunk as much? What if I hadn’t wanted something from the corner shop, or if I hadn’t called Spencer back to ask him to get some milk too? He’d have left thirty seconds earlier. What if he’d crossed the road at a different point? In the end, I had come to one conclusion – this was a game I couldn’t win. It was always going to be checkmate because it was an accident – and so was what happened to Lena.’