As I looked over these pictures I felt my heart break. An actual split in my chest, a physical snap that sent me to my knees. I began to cry. Deep sobs that came all the way from a place of tenderness, newly planted but so deep in my being that those tears felt they carried part of me with them. I didn’t care at all that I would be returning to nothing. I didn’t care about being homeless, or about anything other than the fact that I would never see Gaia and Coco again. I loved those girls more than anything. I adored them. Right then, I knew I would do anything, absolutely anything, to remain a part of their lives forever.

But it wasn’t possible. I was leaving, and I would never be allowed near them again. Tom would probably forbid me from even saying goodbye.

   39   

DID YOU DO IT?

Then

At Highgate Cemetery Clive feels the first drops of rain needle the shoulder of his suit jacket. Luckily the undertaker has a black golf umbrella to hand – they always check the weather forecast, just in case. The family never remembers to bring umbrellas.

Clive holds it over him and Derry with one hand, wraps the other arm around her narrow waist, hooking his thumb under the waistband of her skirt as usual – his sign of affection. They walk amongst the crowd through the Egyptian Avenue. The rain is growing heavier, forming muddy puddles in the path. Derry is wearing black Louboutins. When the rain begins to bounce off the ground she ducks into a vault to wait it out.

‘How are you?’ Clive asks her lightly, in the manner a husband might ask his wife on the day of her friend’s funeral. He raises a hand to move a hair out of her eyes, but she flinches.

‘Don’t touch me.’

He glances at the crowd of mourners ahead, shrouded now by black umbrellas. He can make out Tom, flanked by relatives, his head bowed. He looks like a man who has just emerged from a POW camp. That thousand-yard stare. Rumour has it that Aurelia was found in pieces. He felt sick when he heard that.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘I need to ask you something. About Aurelia.’

Derry keeps her gaze on the space behind him. She looks unsettled. To the outside eye she appears every bit the grieving friend. But the morning Aurelia went missing, he knows Derry wasn’t where she said she was. He wonders – hopes – his fears are wrong. Aurelia had been depressed. They all knew that.

‘You said you were meditating. The morning she went missing.’

He says it carefully. She arches an eyebrow.

‘And?’

‘Come on, Derry. We both know you were out running that morning. Your trainers were sopping wet. And your workout clothes.’