‘Why were you there? Why were you involved at all?’ I asked, pulling out of the car park and nearly mowing a wheelchair down, but Willow refused to answer.

And then at home again, after shouting (me) and crying (her) and ranting (both of us), around 8 p.m., another email arrived.

This time it wasn’t from [email protected]; it wasn’t stupid and clumsy, about supposedly political blackmail.

It was from Melissa, with an attached link. A video clip from a CCTV camera outside my house I’d never known existed.

And this changed everything. Again.

Ruby

THURSDAY EVENING

Zach had barely spoken most of the way home from the hospital, letting Ali go up front. This action alone suggested how bad he felt.

‘I just wanted them to explain,’ he’d said quietly when I’d asked why he’d gone to the school. ‘Cecilia and Willow. Mostly Ces. But I never got that far.’

He’d cheered up minutely when we got to McDonald’s, and I said he could have anything he wanted, twice over – but even a large Big Mac meal didn’t help much. At home, he went straight to his bedroom.

While we all waited anxiously for the phone to ring: for the police to say – I prayed – it was over.

‘Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?’ Gloria had reproved when I opened the door to her, pressing a bottle of rum into my hands as she walked on in. ‘I’d have been here like a shot. Thank God Ali called.’

‘I didn’t want to bother you.’ I followed my mother-in-law’s peroxide beehive – immaculate as ever – into my living room. ‘I know how hard it’s been for you since Jonny…’ But I trailed off when I saw she looked like she wanted to give me a slap.

‘Ruby, you silly moo! You’re family.’ She pulled menthol slims from her patent pink handbag and snapped it shut. Crossed the room on her 1960s fake crocodile skin heels. ‘We’re all we have now, aren’t we? Now Glenmore and Jonny are both gone.’

‘Yes,’ I said meekly – but I knew she was right, and I was glad she had said it.

She regarded me levelly for a moment. ‘I miss my boy, Ruby, every day, just like I miss my old man.’ She opened the balcony door and lit a long slim cigarette. ‘But I do know he weren’t always easy. My boy.’

Why keep up the lie?

‘No, you’re right,’ I agreed bravely. ‘He wasn’t.’ I thought of his smile. Zach’s smile. ‘But oh, Gloria, God’ – for a moment, I felt winded – ‘I wish he was here right now.’

I’d loved that man like I loved the sunshine.

She exhaled deeply. ‘Me too.’ She had the gravelly husk of the long-term smoker, her own milky skin deeply lined, though it looked soft, as if it would be powdery to touch. Her eyes glittered above the two dashes of what she called rouge on her cheeks. ‘I’d give my own life for him to walk through that door again, love.’