I try not to smile as Laurie is forced to freeze his fury in his throat: someone else hurtling over with a volley of instant, urgent questions. Sidestepping all the fuss, I lean down to whisper to Andy, still deflated in his chair.

‘So I’m guessing you will need new photos if this is going to be a whole front page layout?’

I scan his computer screen for clues, Damilola’s school headshot wallpapering my mind.

‘Well, yes…’ he says, frowning up at me as he itches those hands again. ‘But that’s not—’

‘Let me check if the picture desk have got anything new,’ I say. ‘And if not, I can always help with sitting outside the family house. I know you’re trying to make sure someone’s got an eye on it at all times. I bet you don’t have enough people to go round the clock.’

He nods, pursing his lips. Is it to stop himself smiling? I try not to jig on the spot.

‘Will you tell Laurie? Please?’

‘Yeah,’ he grunts, swivelling round to face his computer. ‘But don’t even think about coming back empty-handed, OK?’

I hug myself with my folded arms as I scuttle round the desk. It’s happening, I think. I’m making myself indispensable. Soon enough, it won’t matter who I am, only that they need who I’ve become. The sum of other people’s stories instead of my own.

Marie.

237

Marie ~ London ~ 2006

‘Talk to me, Marie,’ Dominic hisses, hurrying through the crowds swarming in circles inside Liverpool Street Station. ‘Just wait, Jesus…’

He grabs at my arm as we weave out of the clamour, barging past anyone in our way. My arm jerks out of its socket as he yanks me out of the tide of the commuters spilling on to the road, pulling us into a small layby beside the main entrance.

‘Just stop, OK? Just for a second. We need to talk this through.’

‘Plenty of time for that,’ I say, thumbing my phone. ‘But we’ve got to move now if I want to stay under the radar—’

‘I need you to listen to me, OK?’ he interrupts, grabbing my shoulders. ‘If you really have been colluding all this time, then you are in massive, unthinkable danger right now. Massive. The implications of what we’re about to do are … Fuck, I can’t even compute them myself and I’ve been up to the eyeballs, trying to untangle all of this before you came along.’

‘You’re all I need though, Dom. Don’t you see? I’m the one who can prove the coverup and we know for sure now that the police side is clean. There’s no one with better connections than you to leverage them when we need them. Calling 999 would be about as useful as sticking a bullseye on my back.’