AFTER THE TEARS, THE HYSTERIA, THE COMMISERATIONS, the police and the press and the total, drowning, wipe-out misery, it was the day of the funeral. Taisie couldn’t believe that she was standing in a church and that her sister’s body was in that shiny wooden box with the huge arrangement of bright green foliage and white flowers trailing over the edges. The smell of jasmine, roses and lilies was overpowering. There were so many people it was standing room only, and some mourners had even spilled out into the narrow corridor outside the crematorium chapel. Family, friends, teachers, Mr Wendover, their headmaster, looking shiny and smart in his dark suit, his fluffy wife beside him. Taisie saw him tip up his glasses and wipe away a tear.

Her sister was getting SO much attention. It was almost worth dying for.

Oh God. She could not believe she just had that thought.

I’m sorry, Izzy. I really am, truly sorry.

But it wasn’t Taisie’s fault, was it? Izzy knew that if Taisie had known the water level had risen so high she would never have asked her to keep her promise. Izzy wouldn’t have gone in if Nick hadn’t done what he had. A picture of her sister in tears flashes through her mind and is gone. She wouldn’t think about that. She couldn’t. Her mind is swirling with dark clouds. She can’t fix on anything. What had Izzy said to her before she ran off? That Nick had kissed her? That he had touched her breast? She couldn’t picture it. It wasn’t the sort of thing he would do. But on the other hand, the truth is too much to handle. There’s Tim and the way he made her feel, there’s the minutes she lost with her mother’s intervention. Surely Izzy wouldn’t have gone in like that, not without making sure that Taisie was right behind her? So she must have been desperately upset.

This was horrific, unbearable. She couldn’t untangle the strands. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t. So it must have been Nick’s. He was angry at them for the way they had treated him. Izzy had been kind and he had taken advantage of a young girl’s adolescent crush. Izzy had always been a physical child, prone to displays of affection, hugging, winding herself round you. That’s what must have happened. Nick was unhappy, and he got the wrong idea.