They disappeared into a side room to collect the sad little pot containing the final remains of Adam Jones. I looked back for Guy Philips, but he had gone. Everyone had gone. I sat in the front row for a long time, feeling my face burning with the heat of the flames.

The crematorium’s car park was almost empty by the time I drove away. But at the end of a quiet green lane I saw Rosalita waiting at a bus stop.

I stopped, rolled down my window.

‘I remember,’ she said.

I took her to a small café in Golders Green and bought her tea. She said she had to send a text message.

‘My son,’ she explained. ‘He pick me up.’

I sipped a triple espresso as she typed and sent it. Then I watched her staring at her tea. I thought she was already regretting speaking to me.

‘What do you remember, Rosalita?’

She nodded, relieved to begin.

‘Adam’s friends. The brothers. The Indian one. I remember all of them. And the one who died. And the one who was there today. I saw him. A man now. I saw him sitting at the back with you. And I remember.’

‘But what do you remember?’

She nodded again.

‘They would come in the summer. The boys. All the boys would come. When Mr and Mrs Jones were away.’

‘When Adam’s parents were on holiday, his friends would come? They stayed at the house when his parents were away?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did they do?’

Silence. Then she shook her head.

‘They were not good boys.’ How old was she? Mid forties. Two decades ago she would have been in her twenties. Two decades ago she would have been young herself.

‘Adam was a good boy. When he was little. A sweet boy. But he was not good when he was with them.’

‘What happened? Did something happen?’

She stared at her tea.

She wouldn’t look at me.

‘Did they – did they do something to you?’

She looked up as a young man walked into the café. Early twenties, the blue overalls of a garage mechanic. He spoke to his mother in Tagalog.

‘We don’t want no trouble,’ he said, taking his mother’s arm, lifting her from her seat.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Where are you going? What’s wrong?’

‘We don’t want to talk to the police,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

‘What are you worried about?’ I said to him. ‘You don’t have anything to worry about.’

But they were not listening to me now. They were arguing in their own language. Rosalita’s son still had her by the arm.

‘Are you worried about your visa status?’ I tried. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t care about that stuff. I can help you with all that.’

But they were leaving.

‘Rosalita,’ I said, ‘what happened at that school?’