She disappeared across the churchyard, spoke for a moment or two to the old man and returned with a glass pickle jar filled with water. She put the lilies in the jar then tried to stand it on the grave but the stalks were too long and it kept tipping over so in the end she had to prop it against the wooden marker.

After that, Marnie and Alice sat together on the grass beside the grave. It was hot and quiet. The robin watched them pick daisies, and when they had a little pile, Alice chose one and made a split in its stalk with the side of her thumbnail, and Marnie passed her another. Together they made a chain, which they looped over the marker.

‘Would your mummy have liked that?’ Alice asked.

‘She loved flowers. Some flowers. Not flowers in Cellophane.’

‘What does that mean? What are flowers in Cellophane?’

‘Big flowers,’ Marnie said, describing the size of a shop bouquet with her arms. She did not know how else to explain them. ‘She would like those,’ she added, pointing to the lilies.

‘Then we’ll come another day and bring some more.’

When the shadow of the church fell over them, they stood up and dusted themselves down. They walked alongside the estuary together, back towards the holiday park, holding hands.

When they reached the cliffs where the fossil hunters used to come with their hammers and sieves, Marnie asked Alice: ‘Would you like to see my secret cave?’

‘I’d love to.’

So they’d gone to look and Alice had climbed up to see inside and had been impressed and observed that it was the perfect place for hiding precious objects.

Later, when Marnie was back at the caretaker’s cottage, eating baked beans on toast off a plate on her lap in front of the TV with her father, she realised she didn’t feel so lonely about Denise’s dying any more. How could she, now that she had somebody with whom to share it?

41

‘Fuck’s sake. Will,’ said Finn, ‘you really lost it.’

‘It was him,’ Will said. ‘Guy deVillars. He killed Alice.’

‘You know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘For certain?’

‘Yes!’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because he was obsessed with her. He was literally crazy about her. He kept trying to find ways to be with her. And she had arranged to meet him the night she disappeared.’

‘But I thought she was going out with you?’

‘She was. I don’t know why she agreed to see him. Probably to get him off her back. He was always pestering her.’

Finn whistled between his teeth.

‘So, you saw them together that night?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t actually see them. Alice told me to stay away from the caravan.’

‘Oh.’

‘She didn’t want me to see Guy.’

‘Maybe she just wanted a bit of time to herself.’