‘It was in a Tupperware container in his bag, in the undergrowth. They found his …’ I take a deep breath ‘… body in the wood next to the boules club. The land belonged to a farmer but it was overgrown and neglected. He never set foot in the wood he said, he only ever went into the field on the other side to see to his sheep. The police told us the brambles and bracken were six foot high. Billy’s body … it … it crashed through the undergrowth. He was completely hidden.’

‘And the train driver didn’t see them? He didn’t –’ she pauses – ‘feel any impact?’

I shake my head. ‘It was dark and raining heavily and they were both wearing black and hiding in the bushes. It was a goods train, one of those huge great things. The driver didn’t feel a thing.’

‘Oh, gosh.’

‘Billy might have been found if the railway company had cut back all the bushes and hedgerows. They do it every six months according to DS Forbes but there was some kind of dispute with the company they use and it was delayed. Billy could have been found months ago.’

‘And no one from the boules club thought to investigate the hole in the fence?’

I shake my head. ‘There wasn’t one. When Kira climbed back through she bent it back so it looked like no one had ever been there.’

Sonia presses her fingers to her lips, momentarily stunned. ‘Gosh,’ she breathes when she finds her voice again.

‘I know.’

A silence falls between us and then Sonia says, ‘You mentioned something about messages …’

‘Yes, on Billy’s phone. Because it was sealed in Tupperware the police were able to retrieve some data. Images. Pornographic ones of Kira. And some of their Snapchat conversations. He’d saved screenshots.’

‘You saw them?’

‘No, but DS Forbes told me about them. They were pretty bad. He was blackmailing her. It started off as a harmless flirtation but it went too far and when she put an end to it he began blackmailing her. He made her act out some things he’d seen in hardcore porn videos and filmed it.’ I drain the last of my water before reaching for the jug and topping up the glass. ‘It’s been hard, trying to reconcile the boy I thought I knew with who Billy actually was. He said and did all those horrible things but then he died trying to save her life. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?’

‘I’d say that was quite noble.’

Noble. I turn the word over in my mind. Kira told the police she thought Billy had tripped when he’d tried to push her out of the way of the train. He’d tried to stop her from killing herself but he hadn’t meant to die in her place.