She put the varnish brush back in the bottle and stared at her toes of the foot that was on the table for a moment, separated from one another by blobs of cotton wool. Marnie could see her chest rising and falling as her breath moved in and out. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Marnie stood, silent, waiting to be told what to do.

Eventually Alice pointed across the caravan. ‘See the hairdryer, over there, on the shelf beneath the mirror! Fetch it for me, would you, sweetheart? Plug it in. We’ll dry my polish and then we’ll have a proper chat.’

And that’s what they did. Marnie held the dryer to blow warm air at Alice’s toes, even though it was already hot in the caravan, and then Alice took a bottle of lemonade out of her fridge and poured them both a glass. She had ice in a mould in the small freezer compartment: she banged the mould on the sink to free the ice and shared it between the two glasses. She had chocolate in the fridge too, a Bounty bar; they had a segment each. Alice said she loved coconut, it was one of her favourite flavours. All the time she asked gentle questions about Marnie and her life and Marnie answered as best she could.

‘You must think I’m really nosy,’ Alice said – Marnie didn’t – ‘but I’ve always dreamed of having a little sister exactly like you! And then you turned up and came into the caravan entirely off your own bat and you found me! Isn’t that the most amazing thing? Isn’t it?’

Marnie, happier than she’d been in all the weeks since her mother died, agreed, through a mouth sticky with chocolate, that it was.

25

As Will approached, he could see that the road outside the old holiday park was busier than it had been the previous evening. As well as the contractors’ and police vehicles, a host of cars and outside broadcast vans had gathered. Journalists were milling in an area set aside for them by the police. A burger van was doing a roaring trade. Will heard laughter, old friends from different news agencies catching up and exchanging gossip. He walked past them, looking through the gaps in the cars and the fencing. He glimpsed what was beyond, seeing the devastation more clearly in daylight. Most of the old caravans had been cleared, their carcasses piled together to one side, ready to be recycled or burned or compacted or whatever happened to park homes when their useful lives were over. Bulldozers were static now but had been moving earth; plots had been marked out with tape. The men in high-vis jackets and boots and safety hats were hanging back, trying to keep out of the sight of the journalists.