‘Sometimes I think your ma’s right,’ Dad says, on a wry one-sided grin. ‘You’re my comeuppance.’

Holly says, ‘So I can stay?’

‘I’m not happy about it.’

‘Yeah, hello? Nobody’s happy about any of this?’

That brings up the other side of the grin. ‘OK. I’ll make you a deal. You can stay, if you give me your word that you’ll tell me or the investigating officers anything that could conceivably be relevant. Even if you’re positive it isn’t. Anything you know, anything you notice, anything that just happens to occur to you as a vague possibility. Can you live with that?’

It occurs to Holly that this might be what he was after all along, or at least his backup plan. He’s practical. If he doesn’t get his dad wish, at least he can get his detective one.

‘Yeah,’ she says, giving him all the straight look he could want. ‘I promise.’

Selena’s in the bedroom and Becca wants to give her this red phone. It comes with a long explanation that Selena can’t keep hold of, but it lights a grave holy shine all round Becca and almost lifts her off her toes, so probably it’s good. ‘Thanks,’ Selena says, and puts the phone down the side of her bed since that’s where a secret phone belongs, except her own one isn’t there any more. She wonders if maybe Chris came and took it, and left this red one with Becca so he can text her later when he gets a chance because right now he has to be busy, only then that sounds wrong but she can’t track down why because Becca is looking at her, this look that dives down inside Selena and lands right on the place that’s trying hard to hurt. So she just says ‘Thanks’ again and then she can’t remember what they came up here for. Becca gets her flute out of the wardrobe and puts it into her hands and asks, ‘What music do you need?’ and for a moment Selena wants to laugh because Becca looks so calm and grown-up, riffling through her music case neat as a nurse. She wants to say That’s what you should be after school, you should be a nurse, but the thought of the look Becca would give her makes the knot of laughter swell bigger and harder at the bottom of her throat. ‘The Telemann,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’

Becca finds it. ‘There,’ she says, and clicks Selena’s music case shut. Then she leans in and presses her cheek to Selena’s. Her eyelashes moth-wing against Selena’s skin and her lips are stone-cool. She smells like ripped green and hyacinths. Selena wants to hold her tight and breathe her all in, till her blood feels erased to pure again, like none of this ever happened.