Olivia visited. Actually did bring me a cupcake. We sat in my room the way we always had, facing each other cross-legged on my bed. The spaces we occupied, the roles we filled – those were the same, I supposed, but the girls who filled them had changed and were now miscast. There was nothing, it seemed, left to do or say. Nothing substantial. Except for the first thing I asked: ‘Did you tell people?’

‘Tell people what?’

‘About the funeral. About Dad. Did you tell people what I said?’

‘Oh. You mean your … theory?’

I sighed. ‘Yeah. That.’

Olivia placed a hand gingerly on her chest. Recoiled. ‘No. Oh God, no. No one except for Miles. I think. Actually, no, yeah, I was talking about it with a couple –’

‘Olivia.’ I tumbled on to my back, my skull narrowly avoiding the headboard. ‘Olivia,’ I said again, this time to the ceiling.

‘What? What’s wrong? It was just – people were asking how you were, and I, no offence, I was like well, no, she’s not so hot, and obviously they asked why, so I said –’

I clicked my phone to life, pulled up the texts, showed her the screen. Said nothing.

When she was finished reading, she looked at me, blinked, and said, ‘That’s creepy.’

‘I already feel like shit. I don’t need anyone knowing about the finer details of it. Or contributing. Or, I don’t know, even thinking about me at all. OK?’ I prepared myself for her well-meaning axioms, for her to say that she’d done more research and it was common for people to –

‘Like I said. People are worried about you.’ Oh. So I wouldn’t even get the axioms.

‘Yeah, I get it. I’m crazy.’

‘No, that’s not –’ She exhaled through her nose. ‘Well, look. If you’re that concerned, why don’t you go to the police, or something? Is that how it works?’

I shook my head. ‘They said they looked into it.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing.’

Olivia shrugged. ‘Well, then maybe you should listen to them.’

This wasn’t a normal conversation, but the words still came more easily than they had any right to. We were operating at a certain distance, I think; any too-long thought about how we were discussing the implications of my dad’s possible murder would have sent me spiralling, so I didn’t consider it for too long. I thought about me and Olivia aged eight. The pair of us running circles in the cul-de-sac, digging for fossils, riding bikes. That all seemed so far away. Not just that: hostile.

‘Or,’ she continued, ‘didn’t your dad have literal files on everybody? Wouldn’t one of them say if a patient had, like, murderous tendencies?’