Bristol Standard reporter Steve James spoke to a neighbour who watched the appeal on the television. ‘We’ve never had any run-ins with the Wilkinsons. They seem like a perfectly normal family but you have to wonder whether someone knows more about Billy’s disappearance than they’re letting on.’

‘Claire!’ Liz snatches the newspaper from my hands before I can read another word. ‘It’s all crap. They make stuff up to sell copies. No one believes that shit.’

She reaches an arm around my shoulders but I twist away from her, knocking her against the basin in my desperation to get out of the bathroom. It’s unbearably hot and I can’t breathe.

I take the steps down to the hallway two at a time and wrench open the front door. The second I step outside I run.

Chapter 8

I stand at the end of the bed with my feet pressed together and my arms outstretched and I tip backwards. The bedspread makes a delicious floop sound as I hit it and the bed springs squeak in protest. I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.

‘No!’

I look to the right, in the direction of the voice, but there’s no one beside me on the bed. I’m alone in the room. There must be someone in the corridor. A woman arguing with her husband perhaps, although I can’t hear the low rumble of a male voice.

‘No!’

The voice again, quieter this time but closer, as though someone has spoken the word directly into my ear. I sit up in bed and pull my knees in to my chest.

‘NO!’

I clamp my hands to my ears but there’s no blocking out the woman’s voice as she shouts the word, machine-gun fast – NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

It’s inside my head. The voice is coming from inside my head.

‘CLAIRE!’ it shouts. ‘I AM CLAIRE. I AM CLAIRE.’

Claire? Who is Claire? I recognize the name but I don’t want to. I don’t want to know who Claire is. I just want to get back to the seafront. Back to the sunshine and wind and the café on the edge of the pier.

‘I AM CLAIRE! I AM CLAIRE!’

The voice fills my brain, screaming and buzzing, and my head is vibrating and the light, happy feeling inside me is fading.

Dark. Light. Dark. Light.