This is all that’s there. What is it? I lay the fabric down and direct the flashlight on to it. Green. It’s a shirt. Or thicker – a sort of jacket. And it’s stained. Different from the stains caused by the dirt – these are darker, more sporadic. Bloodstained.

And I’ve seen it before. I’m certain I have. I pull up the picture of her on my phone, the one Lenore showed Ellis and me of Roxy on her last night alive. And there it is.

Wrapped round her shoulders like the end of the damn world, there it is. Corduroy collar. Tortoiseshell buttons.

This belonged to Roxy.

I want to collapse, jump out of my skin, scream. I kneel, kneel, kneel. The forest is looking at me. I can feel it. But where is the rest? I dig further down but there’s nothing, no body, no bones – I’m screaming internally. I’m so close. What is this? Where is she?

I don’t know why, but I sit there and cry for a few moments.

I’m lost. Calm down. Calm down. The woods are closing in on me and I need to get out.

I feel myself panicking, losing control of my body, but I find the path marked by the ribbons again and do my best to remember the route. It occurs to me that I could end up stuck out here and then nobody would know what I’d found, which, right now, almost feels more important than my life. Fumbling around in the dark, it’s as though I have no past, no memories – just whatever physical thing I am, panicking in the fragmented moonlight, and slipping against the forest floor, which feels weirdly natural, like I wasn’t meant to do anything before or after this. I’m surrounded by ends. I was born to an end.

My breath comes in shallow spurts, dry and unsatisfying, dizzying.

Eventually I clock the hazy glow of the streetlights from the parking lot and I breathe the bluest breath of my life.

I’d cockily assumed I wasn’t only going to find something, but I was going to find everything, but even this significant something has me trembling.

I am in a world of chaos and unknowns and the only thing I can do is go to the person who can do something about it.

Booker.

I don’t know what else to do so I walk forty-five minutes to the police station, lie on a wooden bench by the entrance, and shut my eyes.

After a horrible non-sleep beginning at midnight even though I knew no one would be there until seven, my back aches horribly, my neck stiff with exhaustion, and I have no dreams – I’m not even sure that I’ve slept. Until someone’s shaking me awake.

‘Kid.’

It’s Booker.

‘Kid. What in the hell are you doing?’