I jolt at the sound of my name and smack my knee against the driving column but there is no one sitting next to me in the car. The windows are still wound tightly shut. No one is knocking on the glass. No one is outside the car looking in. The street is still quiet. And the keys swing back and forth in the ignition. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Did Mark come back from the pub early, drunk and angry? Did Billy say something awful? Something so awful that Mark lashed out? Is that why Billy defaced his photos? Because his dad hit him? But why would he hide the album in the garage? Why not destroy it?

The pain spreads across my forehead and I clutch my hands to my head. My brain is in a vice that’s being wound tighter and tighter and tighter. I can hear it. The vice. It makes a high-pitched squeal, like metal on metal. I plug my fingers into my ears but the sound gets louder.

‘CLAIRE! I AM CLAIRE!’ The voice cuts through the metallic screech but I keep my eyes closed. I need to think. If I could just think clearly I could work out what this means.

Did Mark threaten to hit him again? Is that why Billy fled? Is that why he didn’t take anything with him? He was afraid and he ran. Or was he taken? Did Mark hit him too hard? Did he panic? Did he try and get him to a hospital and then …

‘Mum? Help me, Mum!’

The scream goes through me, cutting through the whine and whirr of the vice. Brakes squeal. Something flies through the air, hurtling towards the car, and I bury my face in my arms. There is a thump as something hits the bonnet and the whole car shakes. A loud crack follows and I am showered with glass.

And then silence.

A silence that seems to last for ever.

Whatever just happened was so terrible, so traumatic, I know that there is no way I can have survived it.

Silence.

The traffic doesn’t roar. The road doesn’t shake. The birds don’t sing and no one speaks.

I peel myself from the steering wheel and raise my head.

A body lies slumped across the bonnet, one arm twisted behind its back, the other reaching for me. I can’t see a face, just the back of a head, the dark hair slick with blood. The face is angled away from me, towards the doors of the doctor’s surgery.

My hands shake as I fumble with the seat belt. Glass shards fall from my thighs and tumble into the foot well as I grip the steering wheel and ease myself up.

‘Billy? Billy is that—’

I clutch my hands to my head as a pain unlike anything I have ever known tears through my brain. And then everything goes black.