The rune shimmered and crumpled. One fragment snapped off that solid dark mass, found a shape of its own: Rebecca. Sliver-thin, kneeling on the grass.

She said, to me: ‘I didn’t think it was going to be Chris.’

I said, ‘The ghost?’

Rebecca shook her head. She said, simply, ‘No, when I texted him to meet me here. I didn’t know who it was going to be. I’d’ve bet anything it wouldn’t be Chris.’

‘Oh, Becs,’ Julia said. She sounded folded over a gut-punch. ‘Oh, Becs.’

In the cypress shadow behind me, Conway said, ‘You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’

Rebecca nodded. She looked frozen to the bones, too cold even to shiver.

I said, ‘So when you got here that night, you were expecting to meet one of the dickheads.’

‘Yeah. Andrew Moore, maybe.’

‘When you saw Chris, you didn’t have second thoughts, no?’

Rebecca said, ‘You don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t trying to figure it out, “Oh am I right am I wrong what should I do?” I knew.’

There it was: why she hadn’t been frightened of Conway and Costello, why she hadn’t been frightened of us. All the long way from that night until this evening – and this evening something had changed – she had known she was safe, because she had known she was right.

I said, ‘Even when you saw it was Chris? You were still positive?’

‘Specially then. That’s when I got it. Up until then, I had it backwards. All those stupid slimebags, James Gillen and Marcus Wiley, it could never have been them. They’re nothing; they’re totally worthless. You can’t have a sacrifice that’s worthless. It has to be something good.’

Even in that light I saw the flicker of Julia’s eyelids, hooding. The sad, sad smile on Selena.

‘Like Chris,’ I said.

‘Yeah. He wasn’t worthless – I don’t care what you guys say’ – into the dark of Julia and Selena – ‘he wasn’t. He was something special. So when I saw him, that was when I actually properly understood: I was getting it right.’

Those voices again, down the bottom of the slope. Building.

I said, fast and a notch louder, ‘It didn’t bother you? Some slimebag who deserved it, that’s one thing. But a guy you liked, a good guy? That didn’t upset you?’

Rebecca said, ‘Yeah. If I’d had the choice, I’d’ve picked someone else. But I would’ve been wrong.’