‘Why do you think that someone in your family hurt Billy?’

‘Gut. Gut feeling.’

‘Is it something someone has done or said?’

I don’t want to talk any more. I feel tired. I want to go to sleep.

‘Claire? Was it something someone said or did?’

‘I don’t know.’

There is a pause, silence, and I drift around within it until Sonia’s voice calls me back again. ‘Okay. Okay, let’s move on. To the next fugue. You found a photo album with images of Mark blacked out and abuse scrawled over the pages. You went looking for Mark, didn’t you?’

I try to search my memory, to answer her question, to please her, but there’s nothing there. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What did you feel? When you saw those photos?’

‘Scared. Shocked.’

‘And did it occur to you that maybe Mark had hurt Billy? That he’d had something to do with his disappearance?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the next fugue. When you saw the message on Jake’s mobile phone. What did you think?’

‘Secret. About Billy.’

‘You thought Jake and someone else knew what had happened to Billy?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who did you think sent the text to Jake?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who could it have been, Claire?’

Faces flash at me through the darkness. Kira. Mark. Liz. Caleb. Stephen. Lloyd. Edie Christian. Caroline. Ian.

‘Someone you know?’ Sonia says and I don’t know if I said those names aloud or if she can see inside my head. ‘You think your friends and family are keeping secrets from you, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to bring you out of your trance in a minute, Claire, but I’ve got one more question I’d like to ask you first. It’s a difficult question but I want you to give me the first answer that comes into your head. Can you do that for me?’

I attempt to nod my head. It feels heavy and unwieldy. ‘Yes.’

‘Claire, do you think Billy is alive or dead?’

I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to say a word but the compulsion to answer her is too strong. My lips part and my tongue taps at the roof of my mouth. ‘Dead.’

Chapter 40

We drive in silence through Bristol and up the Wells Road. The streets flash past. Mothers, bent double and panting, heave their buggies up the hill as schoolchildren speed past them on scooters. Old men sit at bus stops staring vacantly into space as their wives natter, unheard, beside them. Weary shoppers pour out of the Co-op, heavy carrier bags cutting into their palms, and men stride out of the barber’s, tapping at their hair. Everywhere I look there is life but mine has ended.