“Okay, then. I’ll speak to you soon, Jane. Goodnight.”

The phone line goes dead but the television continues to flicker and glow as David Attenborough continues his voiceover, his dulcet tones describing the interplay between rhinos and the birds that pick the ticks from their backs.

“The relationship between rhino and ox picker was originally thought to be an example of mutualism, but recent evidence suggests that ox pickers may be parasites instead.”

The phone is answered on the first ring. “Emma! I was just thinking about you.”

DS Armstrong’s warning about being careful about whom I speak to chimes in my ears but I block it out. I can’t talk to Will about this. I can’t talk to anyone other than Al.

“Emma?” she says again. “Are you there?”

“Leanne’s alive.”

The tinny sound of a TV crackles in the background. “What? What did you just say?”

“Leanne’s alive. She’s been in a psychiatric hospital in Scotland for the last four or five years. Did you know?”

“No.” The background buzz of the television stops suddenly as she turns it off. “Fuck.”

Neither of us says anything for several seconds. I glance at the TV. The documentary has moved on from rhinos and tick birds and is showing a slow motion shot of a lion chasing down an antelope.

“Are you sure, Emma? Are you absolutely sure she’s alive?”

“A detective from CID just rang me. He said she’s been in hospital all this time. She left three months ago. He didn’t say what she was in for, and he doesn’t know where she is now.”

“Has he tried her mum?”

“Yeah, couldn’t get any sense out of her.”

“Probably drunk.”

We both fall silent again. Silent apart from the heavy, rasping sound of Al’s breathing followed by the “psssht” of compressed air being released as she takes her inhaler.

“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” I say. “The DS told me not to, but I didn’t know who else to ring.”

“You did the right thing. Fuck, I can’t believe it. Five fucking years I’ve thought she was dead …” She tails off.

“Do you think she could be behind this, Al? The messages? The text? The …” I pause, not wanting to say it. “… hit and run?”

I hold my breath and pray that she says no, that she thinks I’m being paranoid, that no one in the real world holds a grudge for five years. Instead, she says, “I’m not sure. I want to say no, that she’d never do something like that, but she changed. We all did. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, Al.” I stand up, cross the room and pull the curtains closed, blocking out the darkness outside. “I really don’t know.”

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Five Years Earlier