The book also had a chapter dedicated to the Mills family history. Camille was an only child and the holiday park was her destiny. Although she shared her parents’ altruism, she didn’t have a natural bent for business. When the young Edward deVillars was drafted in to be the park’s duty manager, it didn’t take him long to fall in love with Camille. Of course it didn’t. He’d have been a fool not to! They made the perfect couple. Both committed to the park, she was creative, energetic and sociable, full of ideas and plans, and he understood the economics and the business side of things. They were soon married at Severn Sands church – there was a lovely picture of them on their wedding day. After that, Camille’s parents retired to the South of France and Edward and Camille took over Blackwater House.

As often as not, in the old days, when Camille went on her wanderings around Channel View, Edward would be with her. It was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes in their head, even a child like Marnie, that he adored his wife and would have done anything for her.

23

Will Jones bought himself a late breakfast in the Dolphin café. Although the dolphin on the sign outside was holding a hot-dog, the café was vegan, one of those no-waste places that used up other establishments’ leftover vegetables; the kind of café of which Saoirse was particularly fond. Will ate a surprisingly tasty full English served to him by a Lithuanian woman with bright black hair streaked with electric blue and tied with a band that reminded Will of the way Alice used to tie her hair back: like a housewife in a 1940s advertisement. The vibe of the café, the bright colours of the interior and the chirpy radio music, big, plate windows, giving out onto the vast greyness and stillness of the estuary, filled Will with an almost unbearable nostalgia. If only there was a way to turn back time, to transport him back to that summer when the bridge hadn’t yet been completed, when the sun shone down and Alice Lang was alive, a happy, tattooed whirlwind in Caravan 49.

In the beginning, those first hours after her disappearance, before anyone realised she was actually missing, he believed what his mother had said, that Alice was staying away because of how he’d behaved and that she would soon be back. He kept expecting her to appear, laughing, her smile fading when she realised how guilt-ridden and worried he’d been.

‘Oh, Will,’ she would say, holding her hands out to him, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I only wanted to teach you a lesson.’ And he’d have apologised too, told her a million times how sorry he was, and Alice would have forgiven him.