I’m growing impatient now. ‘Please. For Ellis’s sake. We just want to understand and go home.’ I look at Booker as if to confirm whether or not we’re actually in imminent danger.

He nods subtly. Go ahead. Find out.

‘This,’ Roxy gestures around us, ‘was part of a plan. From the time we were teenagers, Mary Anne and I. I liked to hike, walk and walk and walk, and I came across this place, abandoned. Old hunting cabin, lousy with ammo cartridges. I decided I’d like to fix it up. And I did, on my own. Me and Mary waxed poetic about coming out here, the two of us. The original plan didn’t include arriving and never going back, but that’s sure as hell how it worked out for me. I’d spend a lot of time here writing, thinking, and when she was being civilized, we’d make contact through –’

‘The radios,’ I breathe.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s why you needed money. Beforehand. Because you were fixing this place up.’

‘Oh, you know all about me, don’t you?’ She takes another sip from her glass. ‘Anyways, yes. Frank knew his stuff about ham radio at the time, so I sought a bit of guidance from him when I was, oh, maybe eighteen,’ she says, tripping mischievously over the word ‘guidance’. Roxy looks at her radio unit. ‘No ping today.’

‘From Mary Anne? There won’t be. The entire island’s been evacuated.’

Roxy laughs, loud and long, none of us sure why; it’s long enough for Ellis to shift uncomfortably beside me. ‘Always something to say, that one. Baby Blue, recently.’ She taps her temple. ‘That was the panic word.’

‘And you don’t respond,’ I say, doing my best to keep the conversation directed.

‘Except, of course, when I found out my mother had died. Of course that was a cause for celebration! And I asked her to forward a message.’

‘Why would you do that to her?’ Ellis asks, and we all know he’s talking about Sylvia. It’s a pointed and entirely brave question, given how volatile Roxy has shown herself to be. He’s been so quiet and now he’s loud. In fact, I’ve never heard his voice sound stronger – he must have been sitting there simmering this whole time. ‘How could you? Since she found out, she can’t even hear your name without – and I was trying to prove that you wouldn’t just leave. Or run away. But that’s exactly what you did. And actually, you didn’t even run away – you were basically here the whole time.’

Roxy is quiet for a moment. Blinks. ‘Are you finished?’

‘Oh,’ Booker groans, ‘come on, Roxy, he’s –’