He’d interviewed a man once who, as a child, had accidentally killed his younger brother. The man had grown up to become desperately religious. He spent his whole life caring for others, doing good works, trying to make up for tipping his brother out of a wheelbarrow when he was five years old. No matter how much the man sacrificed himself, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t lessen his own pain. You could see it in his eyes. Everyone else had forgiven him – although there was nothing really to forgive – but he couldn’t forgive himself. Will had felt deep pity for the man at the time; he’d never forgotten him. Now he wondered if he would be the same. No, not the same: worse. If Will had hurt Alice and then hidden her body, that would have been a deliberate act. There could be no redemption.

Perhaps if people had started looking for Alice sooner things would have turned out differently, but it had taken a while for anyone to realise she was missing. When she wasn’t back in her caravan by Saturday evening, there was some small consternation. Will overheard a conversation between his mother and Mrs deVillars, Angharad reassuring Camille that Alice had more than likely gone to the festival in Weston. She was in her twenties, on holiday, she was at liberty to go out and do whatever she wanted. Camille had been flustered.

‘I feel a responsibility towards the girl,’ she said.

‘But you can’t go worrying about every young person who tips up at Channel View,’ Angharad had replied. ‘You can’t control their movements. They’re here to have fun. She’ll be fine, you’ll see.’

After Camille had gone, Will asked Angharad if she meant it when she said Alice would be fine and Angharad told Will that she was sure she would be. She said his behaviour had probably upset Alice to the point where she felt she had to get out of Channel View, ‘and who could blame her?’ She’d be letting her hair down at the festival, having a whale of a time, mixing with people ‘more her own age’, a barb intended to make Will feel childish. None the less, it seemed a reasonable explanation and Angharad genuinely did not appear worried.

By Sunday night, people were arriving back from the festival and only when Caravan 49 was still empty on Monday morning had Mrs deVillars called the police.