I glance to Roxy, who is silent, shifting her gaze between Ellis and me. I feel sick.

‘Christ, you’re far north. Think we’d be able to get a chopper out there to you?’

‘Wouldn’t count on it. Boat’d be better.’

‘All right, all right. Stay nearby. Could be out to you in thirty minutes. Conditions clear as day. Fucking miracle. But I gotta be honest, you get those kids ready and keep ’em close – it’s a circus out here.’

Ellis and I share a glance.

‘Copy. I owe you one. Over.’

Roxy looks at Booker, taking another sip of her drink. ‘Really is a pleasure to see you again, Lee.’

Booker doesn’t seem charmed. Not just that – he speaks to her like he’s coaxing her into something, as though he’s trying not to provoke a wild animal. ‘What happened that night, Rox?’ The tenderness of it, the familiarity, astonishes me. As if no time has passed. If I wasn’t able to before, I can now, so clearly, imagine Booker as a young man, rowdy at the Indigo. ‘Do you know what these kids have been through trying to find out? Hell and back.’

Roxy shifts on the couch, her aura darkening by the second. She slumps back and crosses her arms, almost pouting like a child. ‘Oh. I see. That’s all you care about, right?’

‘Roxy – you destroyed us.’ Booker links his fingers. ‘All of us. Why did it have to happen like this? And what the hell are you doing here?’

‘I don’t want to write about you any more,’ I pipe up, assuming that’s why she isn’t speaking. ‘If that helps anything.’

Roxy’s bemused again. ‘Surely not because this is less interesting than you’d hoped?’ she says, almost offended.

‘No. The opposite. Obviously. But I realize now that it’s not my story to tell. I think all of us …’ I look at Ellis. I really see him now, close up; his face is covered in cuts, his eyes are red-rimmed, his hair’s a mess. I think of him, soft, fleecy Ellis, going through what I did and want to cry. So I reach for his hand and link. Even if it meant never getting the answers, I’d happily trade being here for each of us at home in bed, even if that meant not getting the chance to speak to her. ‘I think all of us just want to understand.’

Roxy looks around the place, fondly, sadly. It’s really been battered by the storm. ‘You are the only other living people ever to be here. Hm, isn’t that something?’

‘What is this place?’ I ask.

Roxy settles in. Maybe she will start answering questions. ‘If you wanna know, you have to understand Mary Anne. But you must already know some of it because she blabbed to Lee, and she wouldn’t have done that unless –’