Liz’s voice rings in my ears as I park the car and walk down the lane towards the Lamplighters pub.

‘Don’t you be going to any more places on your own. You need to let the police do their job.’

I block her voice out.

There isn’t a single empty table outside the pub. Everywhere I look there are men and women in T-shirts and shorts, vest tops and dresses; all drinking, smoking and chatting and enjoying the last vestiges of summer. The sun is low in the sky, the clouds striped amber and red. It’s warm but I still shiver in my thin cardi, maxi dress and sandals. I should have changed before I left the house.

I take a right outside the pub and weave through the gate into Lamplighters Marsh, the pathway that follows the river Avon. It’s been a long time since I was last here. It was before the kids were born, back when Mark had a motorbike and we’d go off on adventures, discovering parts of Bristol we’d never visited before, spending hours nursing pints of shandy (him) and glasses of Martini and lemonade (me) as we learned everything there was to know about each other.

Spiky bushes and dense bracken flank me on both sides, obscuring the view of the river and the city. In the distance is the Avonmouth Bridge, a grey metal slash cutting through the sky. A seagull circles overhead and then dips down towards the ground and disappears from view. I continue on towards the bridge. If Billy was going to tag anything around here that would be his target.

For several hundred metres I can still hear the laughter and chatter from the pub behind me and then it is gone, replaced by the rush of a wind that seems to come from nowhere and the low drone of cars speeding across the bridge. The path winds and curves as I continue to walk and the sun dips lower in the sky. I cross paths with a solitary dog walker. He raises a hand in greeting and then he too is gone. I continue along the path for five, maybe six minutes more and then discover a break in the bushes and a lone green bench on the edge of marshy riverbank. I pause as I spot something floating on the surface of the water. Something black, voluminous, like an item of clothing puffed up with air. When Billy first disappeared there was talk of dredging the river. I couldn’t bear it. I had to leave the room.

I stand stock-still, with one hand pressed to my chest as the river carries its hoard closer, closer and then air rushes from my lungs as it turns in the water and the twisted knot of a torn bin bag appears on the surface. It’s a bag. Just a bag.