Of course, there was a possibility things would be different now there was no prospect of there being a future for him and Alice. Maybe at some point, he would be able to move on, but he couldn’t see it. The confirmation of Alice’s death only made her more precious, her memory more fragile, something to be worshipped and treasured because now there never would be any more memories. There was no future, only the past, and Will owed it to Alice not to let her go. What else could he do for her? What else had he ever been able to do? He was to be the writer of her story; the gatekeeper to her memory.

A light wind spilled from the sea. The tide was receding. Will could see the first hints of sandbanks emerging in the shallows in places, their outlines picked out by the burnished metal colours of sunset, their shadows long and dramatic. In other spots, the hidden rocky landscape, like somewhere from a different planet, was emerging. Gulls called overhead, flashes of white drifting against a wide grey sky. In the distance, the closer of the great bridges spanned and rumbled.

Fossil hunters used to come to stay in Channel View holiday park: professional palaeontologists from international museums and universities, who needed cheap, local accommodation while they worked. There was one particular small cliff on this stretch of the coast where numerous bones had been found including species previously unrecorded. That was where Marnie used to have her secret ‘cave’, in fact just a small cavity left behind in the rock by the scientists.

Marnie was fascinated by the palaeontologists. She collected plastic models of dinosaurs and knew all their names. John Morahan, Will remembered, had taken his daughter to see the film Jurassic Park a few weeks before his wife’s death. Marnie had returned from the expedition breathless with awe. She had recounted the plot to Will in one long monologue, probably the longest speech that Marnie ever made in her life. She acted out the dramatic parts, being both monstrous creatures and hunted children. ‘They’re so big, Will, and they run so fast! And their breath is like…’ pant, pant, pant, ‘… all steaming up the window!’

John had promised to take Marnie to Bristol Museum to see some of the dinosaur fossils found near Severn Sands, which were displayed beside models of the terrible creatures they’d come from: creatures with giant crocodile mouths and teeth like kitchen knives. But Denise had died and it was obvious that John would never fulfil his promise, and although Will always meant to step in and take Marnie to the museum himself, what with Alice and the police and then university he never quite got round to it.