‘The secrets we bury have a way of clawing back to the surface, don’t they?’ He sighed; shook his head. Then he looked directly at Louisa. ‘You’d been to a house party. I hadn’t gone with you, mainly because I knew what kind of party it was likely to be. It was the end of term. You’d told me you deserved to let your hair down, seeing as you’d worked so hard and your parents were away for a long weekend in Brighton, so you wouldn’t have to answer to anyone. You were mad at me for not going – it was one of our first arguments. I just wanted us to stay at yours, make the most of being able to spend time with you alone. Do you remember that?’

‘No. Oliver, look – assume I know nothing, and just tell the whole story.’ Her impatience for him to get to the point was overwhelming her.

‘Fine. Sorry. So, you drove there. You didn’t tell me you were going to drive. You’d not long passed your test and I knew there’d be drink, even drugs, readily available there. It was the Lakes’ house. They were always smoking weed, drinking cider whenever I saw them out of college. Sometimes even in college.’ He took a breath. ‘Anyway, I got a call. It was two in the morning and immediately I knew something had happened. Something bad.’

Louisa placed her elbows on her lap, and cupped her chin in her hands, trying to steady the shakes.

‘You didn’t make any sense on the phone. You were half-crying, half-screaming. I panicked. Said I’d come over to you. I was there in ten minutes flat.’ He smiled. ‘I drove like a maniac, which is ironic, really, considering.’

‘Considering what?’

‘That the reason you were in such a state was because you’d been driving too fast – or erratically, anyway. Zipping through the lanes like you owned them. You’d felt more confident driving the narrow lanes than the main roads; loved the twistiness, how your little Mini seemed like it was doing eighty miles an hour, even though it struggled to hit fifty. But, fifty miles an hour in winding narrow lanes, well, that can be lethal if someone was to get in the way.’

‘Stop. Stop a minute,’ Louisa gasped. The blood. The body in the road. Her screaming. That had been because she’d hit someone. Speeding through the lanes. And Oliver was right, she did remember loving the feel of the twisting lanes, the fact they were always so quiet giving her the impression she was the only one ever to drive them. It made her feel as though she were free. But if she’d hit someone, why didn’t either of them report it? Phone for an ambulance?