She hurried away from him and he felt a surge of emotion and frustration. He needed Marnie. He needed to tell her what he’d seen because out of everyone, Marnie Morahan was the one who best knew how the world had been during the summer of Alice. She was the one who would understand.

He ran after her.

‘Marnie!’

He put a hand on her shoulder. She gave a gasp of fear. He could hear the panic in her breathing.

‘Marnie, it’s me, for God’s sake, Will Jones. We’re buddies, remember? Scooby and Shaggy, Dumb and Dumber… shit, sorry, I didn’t mean… Look, I’m not going to hurt you! I didn’t come back to cause trouble. I want to make things right. I want us to be friends again.’

She was struggling. Her lips were parted a little, he could see the sharp edges of her teeth but she couldn’t get the words out. Then she held up her hand again, to make him take a step away from her and give her more space. She took her phone out of her pocket and she tapped in a sentence, turned the screen to show him:

You asked me to lie for you and then you went away.

Will read the sentence once. Read it again. He scratched his head, playing for time. So she did remember. Bollocks.

He could not excuse himself for implicating the child that she had been in his guilt so he took a different tack, ignoring the first part of her accusation and dealing with the second.

‘I had to go away, Marnie. It was university. The term was starting, I couldn’t not go.’

She looked at him and her eyes were the eyes of the child who’d been betrayed. He remembered holding her hot hand as she lay in her bed in the caretaker’s cottage, and how he’d made promises to her: a promise that he’d write every week without fail, a promise that she could come and visit him when he was settled in university, a promise she could stay in his room. He’d make a little bed for her on the floor and they’d drink Coca-Cola – proper Coke, not the treacly brown fizzy pop they sold at Channel View – and later he’d get a flat of his own and she could come and live with him there. She’d have her own room and they’d play cards every night and watch videos on TV and eat popcorn. All this but only if she would promise, swear on her father’s life, that she’d never tell anyone about him and Alice.

‘Marnie,’ he began, ‘look, I know what you’re thinking and I—’

The hand was raised again. No!

‘Marnie, I’m sorry. I was a dick, I admit it. I always meant to reply to your letters, I always intended to…’