‘Because it’s hers. You said she’d put it in the shed. I saw her looking at it and she seemed upset. I think she wanted it back. She shouldn’t have just taken it, though, should she? She should’ve asked first.’

‘Yes, she should have.’

‘She told me you were wrong saying the boy in the picture looked like me. She said it was my uncle. He’s dead isn’t he.’

‘No one knows for sure, sadly. He went missing when he was seventeen and didn’t come home again. Nanna and Daddy have always hoped one day he’d come back.’

‘Perhaps he has,’ Finley says, his tone serious.

I sit back hard on the bench. Christ. I hadn’t even considered it.

What if the missing thirteenth viewer is Tim Miller?

Chapter Fifty-Nine

For a long time, I questioned nothing. It didn’t seem necessary and I was getting on with my life the way I wanted to. I didn’t need to drag up the past because I was trying to cope with the here and now. The past wouldn’t let me go, though. Someone had a purpose, and they needed certain things to ensure their objective was reached.

To begin with, I thought it was a mistake. But, in time, when further things came to light, I realised there were no such things as mistakes. People made decisions, acted how they thought would best serve them. Including me.

There are no mistakes, only lessons.

It’s funny how you see what you want to see. Even when the truth is as plain as the nose on your face.

I’d needed to protect myself from what was happening, and refusing to see the facts made that easier. It was as if they knew that about me. Knew my weaknesses.

They didn’t care about any of that, though.

And now, the truth will out.

Chapter Sixty

Barb

‘Why are you here?’ I carry on poking the stick into the burning bin. I need to make sure there’s nothing left. Not a single bit of the picture or frame.

‘Oh, I’m just visiting.’

His voice is coarser than it was – likely from the forty-a-day smoking habit he once had. I haven’t heard it for about thirty years, mind.

‘Visiting who?’

‘My brother, of course,’ he says. My pulse bangs fast; irregularly. I can feel it in my throat, pushing against the roll-neck of my jumper.

‘Oh, right. Well, don’t let me stop you.’

‘He’s not going anywhere; he can wait. I’m not exactly sure where he is. It’s been a long time.’

I don’t know what his game is – why he’s here, how he knew where to find me. I just want to get rid of him.

‘Under the first big oak tree as you go in the bottom entrance,’ I say.

‘That’s right, is it?’