‘We should write a list,’ he interrupted again. ‘Write down everyone he’s been in contact with over the past month, from people at his gym to whoever makes his morning coffee.’

‘Fisher,’ Pam snapped. She was still holding onto Kate’s hand and now gave it a sharp squeeze. The polished rings pinched Kate’s skin, but she kept quiet.

Without another word, Fisher went back onto the deck and lit a fresh cigarette. Kate hesitated a moment, then followed him.

The night was still and crisp. A plane cut through the sky above them, blinking red and blue lights against a vast field of black. Below the plane and beyond their sprawling garden of weeping willows, the city glistened beneath a fat moon. The moonlight was sombre, the darkness outside it heavy and deep as an ocean.

Fisher stood by the safety railing, fiddling with a red packet of cigarettes. He took one out and lit up. Kate joined him. Neither spoke for a long time. Kate kept her eyes fixed ahead, listening to the sharp inhale of cigarette smoke and the long, wheezing exhale.

‘What you said in the police station,’ she started. ‘About me being vague, passive to the point of being invisible.’

‘Can we not do this now?’ Fisher said. ‘I’m just chewed up over this whole mess. I’m sorry for what I said, really, but—’

‘You were right,’ she said.

He dragged on his cigarette and said nothing. Kate watched him for a moment, then turned back to the moon.

‘You see me as someone who needs protecting,’ she said, the words burrowing up from somewhere deep and dark and well hidden. ‘You think that because John does, and John believes it because I let him. I thought that’s what he wanted. I thought that’s how he wanted me to be. So, I fostered that. I nurtured it. But that’s not who I am, Fisher.’

He turned to her and asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m stronger than people think, so please, from here on in, don’t talk to me like I’m a child, don’t look at me like I’m a hysterical woman. Give me the respect of talking straight.’

He flinched.

‘Alright,’ he said.

‘Alright.’

Fisher flicked his cigarette into the garden that stretched ahead of them like a bottomless void. The butt sailed for a while, exploded into red sparks, then faded. Kate let that mark the end of their conversation and went back inside the house.

Mia was in her bedroom, dressed in the Spider-Man onesie John had bought her. The room was bright, full of yellows and blues, but the little girl sitting cross-legged on the carpet was somehow colourless.

Her small hands were pressed into a steeple, and she was whispering.

‘Can I come in?’ Kate asked.

Mia shrugged, which Kate chose to take as an invitation. She sat down next to her daughter and asked, ‘Were you praying?’