The engine roars past me. The wheels pound the tracks. The noise is overwhelming. It’s not too late. I take a step forward. I can do it. I can still—

‘No!’ I hear a scream above the roar of the train, then there’s a weight against my shoulder and I’m knocked from my feet. There’s a dull thump, a rush of air hits me in the face then there’s a crashing sound as though something has been thrown into the woods from a great height. And then everything goes quiet.

Chapter 67

CLAIRE

Sunday 30th August 2015

I do not feel relieved or angry or shocked. I do not feel sad or vengeful or scared.

I feel nothing.

I am aware that I should react, that I should cry or scream or shout, but I feel no compulsion to do so.

I feel nothing.

It is as though someone has scooped out my heart and replaced it with sand. There is nothing inside me apart from a strange, dull ache in the centre of my chest.

Kira’s face is still hidden behind her hands but the cotton pillow beneath her head is wet with tears. I didn’t think she was going to talk to me but once she started she couldn’t stop. The words poured out of her; the words, the pain, the fear.

‘Billy saved you,’ I say. ‘He pushed you out of the way to save your life.’

Kira says nothing. So talkative and now so silent.

‘And you left him there, dead or dying in the wood, and you drove back home. And then you crawled into bed with his brother as though nothing had happened.’

She sobs, audibly this time, and pulls the blanket up and over her head. I gaze down at her, at the slender figure shrouded beneath the blanket. Seven months. For seven months she’s watched me lose my job, my marriage, even my sanity and she hasn’t said a word. All this time she’s idly stood by as Jake and Mark have torn themselves apart.

‘You could have told me. If you’d said that Billy was blackmailing you I would have done something. I would have made him stop.’

The shape beneath the blanket moves as she shakes her head.

‘You don’t believe me?’

The sheet shifts as she pulls it away from her face and looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

‘You’d have thrown me out.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because you thought Billy was perfect.’