‘She could’ve. Everyone knew about her secrets. Not what they were. Just that she had ’em.’

‘Do you know anything about Frank? The ferry master? I heard something about Roxy blackmailing him.’

‘Sounds like her.’

I don’t know what else to ask. At this point I feel like I’m going in circles. I thank Henry for his time and go to leave, but remember one more thing. ‘Do you know about anyone called Baby Blue?’ I ask.

He furrows his brow. ‘Not the Badfinger song?’

I almost laugh. ‘No, that’s all right. Thanks again.’

Henry sings behind me – ‘Guess I got what I deserve, kept you waiting there, too long, my love’ – as I walk back out into the blaze.

I leave but don’t feel like going back to the dorm yet. I ride all the way up past the isthmus, the sun setting now, the horizon pink-edged and smouldering. Warm air on my face. I’m feeling alive.

I’m thinking about everything Henry said. Mary Anne and Roxy fought; Booker, Archie and Mary Anne all left together.

A sense of calm falls over me, the world rolling underneath. I think we’re close to something now.

I circle the Willowwood just to greet it, almost hope Sylvia catches me passing from the window. Everything is going to be OK. Great, even. We’re going to crack it. This whole thing is going to split open.

I ride past the edge of the No-Names, branches beckoning with their long skeletal fingers from the perimeter, and I don’t like them, as always, but I get to thinking about forests.

Maybe we’re all full of an empty plain but then with every memorable moment, good and bad, there’s another tree planted. Then another then another then another. And maybe we convince ourselves that, as we become increasingly tangled in the mass of trees and divots that are us, life is about looking for the clearing, the bit where all of it breaks. But maybe that’s the secret. Maybe the secret is that it never breaks. Not really. It never breaks, and the only thing that’s really gratifying is pressing the bark against your face and delighting in the thought that this is me, and this is real, and this is true. Just lying down in the undergrowth, in a wood made of all of you, of every joy and every terror, and saying this is me, and this, and this. The difference between feeling lost and feeling fine isn’t a change in circumstances, it’s a change in behaviour.

Truth of circumstance isn’t the same as truth of the self, I decide. This search for Roxy is powered only by events, actions, things that people actually did. But maybe truth of the self is whatever I’d damn well like it to be.