I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Why haven’t you told me this before? Does Dad know? Did you tell the police?’

‘I thought Billy would come back. I thought he’d done it to get attention and I wasn’t going to play along.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘When we realized that he wasn’t dicking about and the police interviewed us I told them the truth. They asked if anyone could corroborate my statement and I said that Kira could. They never talked to me about it again. I should have told you and Dad too but you were both so cut up and I didn’t … I didn’t want you to hate me.’

‘Oh, Jake.’

‘No, Mum. Don’t hug me. I don’t deserve it. If I hadn’t hit him Billy wouldn’t have left and Jason Davies wouldn’t have got hold of him. My brother’s been murdered and it’s all my fault. It’s my fucking fault!’

He moves in a blur. One second he’s sitting on the bed, the next he’s up on his knees. He swings back his right arm and smashes his fist into the bedroom wall, then follows it with a punch from his left hand.

‘Stop! Jake, stop! Don’t do this!’

I use all my body weight to try and pull him away but it’s like wrestling a bull as he punches the wall again and again and again, driving his fists into it, smearing it with blood.

‘Please! Stop! Please!’

Jake pauses, fist pulled back, and as quickly as his rage boiled to the surface it dies away and he slumps onto the bed and curls up in the foetal position, his knuckles raw and bleeding.

‘Jake.’ I press myself into the curve of his back and wrap my arms around him. ‘Jake, it’s not your fault. Listen to me, please. I could never blame you for what’s happened. Never. Never.’

He howls with anguish and then bursts into tears. I hold him as he cries, his body juddering in my arms just the way it did when he was a toddler.

Chapter 38

Sonia gestures for me to take a seat and smiles warmly. The box of tissues that normally sits on the windowsill behind her has been relocated to the coffee table next to me. I don’t know if that’s because her last client was a crier or because she’s expecting me to be.

‘Thanks for seeing me,’ I say. ‘If you hadn’t had a cancellation I don’t know what I would have done.’

‘No problem at all.’ She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and settles herself in the seat, neatly tucking one ankle over the other. ‘Tell me what’s going on with you, Claire.’