She was propped on the pillows, breathing staccato through her mouth, her fringe stuck to her forehead and beads of sweat glistening on her skin. Her lips were a blueish colour, her cheeks sunken like an old person’s. She was wearing a short cotton nightdress and pants. She smelled odd: sweet, like something decomposing in the wetlands in winter.

Marnie lay there watching Will trustingly, her eyes shiny and dark in the dim light, waiting to be told what it was that he wanted.

‘Listen, Marnie,’ Will said, ‘I need you to do something for Alice, OK?’

Marnie nodded.

‘If anyone asks you questions about her,’ he paused to moisten his mouth, ‘even someone like the police, then it’s fine to talk about you and her, and the things you did together, but you mustn’t tell them anything about me and her. OK?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if you do, Alice will be in trouble. She’s not allowed to have a boyfriend.’

Marnie’s face had remained blank. She was an unworldly little girl. She didn’t think to question this explanation.

Will leaned a little closer, so that his face was so close to hers that he could smell her exhaled breath, her unbrushed teeth.

‘So, just to be clear, that means not telling people that Alice and me liked one another, not telling them about the necklace I gave her, and the absolute most important thing is that you never tell anyone that you saw me at Alice’s caravan the other day, when we were fighting.’

Marnie nodded.

‘Do you understand, Marnie? You never saw us fighting. You never saw me throw the stones at the caravan…’

‘I understand.’

‘The best thing, if anyone asks, is to say that you never saw me and Alice together at all. That way you won’t have to answer any extra questions.’

‘OK.’

‘Promise me, Marnie? Promise you won’t get Alice into trouble? Promise you won’t say anything to anyone?’

She promised.

He’d stayed a while longer, selling her dreams about a future he knew full well wouldn’t happen, gabbling promises he would not keep about the two of them getting a flat together and so on. Marnie loved to hear about the fun they were going to have; the things they were going to do; the places they were going to go. She hung on to his every word while he told all those lies and all the time Jesus-on-the-wall was watching; Jesus with his blond hair and blue eyes. Hadn’t Denise put Him there to stop people like Will coming into the bedroom and corrupting her little daughter? Didn’t that make what Will had done even worse?

Jesus. Jesus-on-the-wall watching over Marnie. Jesus put there by Marnie’s religious mother, a woman who had been thirty-seven years old when she died.

Fourteen years older than Alice.