If she has my phone number, then what else does she know?

I haven’t targeted her. Partly because she lives the furthest away, but also because she was the least involved. Yes, she might have told tales to the police with her friends, but she was never directly involved in the games we liked to play.

Because that’s all they were. Stupid little games. And okay, sometimes games end with accidents. Miles Goldberg got unlucky, just as Scott Copeland did years before.

I suppose Scott was the closest thing I had to a best friend growing up, but he started turning into a bossy little shit, always trying to tell me what to do, and I didn’t like it.

That’s why I dared him to get on the swing that went across the pond. He couldn’t swim, but I kept calling him a chicken shit and he didn’t like that. I could see he was getting more and more anxious as Mum pushed him higher. He wanted to get off, but Mum ignored him and I encouraged her to keep going, enjoying the fear on his face as he struggled to hold on.

Eventually he slipped and I remember watching as he fell through the air, the look of horror on his face as he fell, his body creating a huge splash as it broke through the water.

I looked at Mum, expecting her to panic, but she was impassive, watching him thrash about in the water.

‘Shouldn’t we help him?’ I whispered the words, knowing it was the right thing to say, but a perverse part of me didn’t want to break the moment. I was enjoying Scott’s struggle.

She never answered me and we stood side by side at the edge of the pond, watching until the water finally stilled.

When Mum was arrested, the police started looking at Scott’s death again. It was ruled as an accident at the time. Scott was playing on the tyre swing alone and Mum had found him face down in the pond. That was what we told the police when they first came looking for him. Mum said as long as we stuck to the same story we would be okay, and she was right.

That was the first time I really felt how proud she was of me. I had done well and she rewarded me with my favourite ice cream after the police left.

And, okay, it was a shame Scott had died, but there would be other friends, and there had been, until they had ruined everything.

I barely think of him these days, but Hannah is often on my mind. For now I have just been toying with her, but soon I will take my revenge.

First I need to nip this thing with Lauren in the bud.