‘What do you mean?’

‘I said I’d get you back on the show as a favour, and that’s what this is: a favour. It’s going to be a lovely little scene, yeah? We meet and there’s a confrontation. I tell you how you broke my heart and you apologize, and we talk about the fun we used to have together. No hard feelings, and all that. But I’m with Swifty now. You know that – you must have read the papers?’

Abs looked over at the kid standing staring at his phone. ‘What, you’re seeing him in real life?’

‘Yeah,’ she told him brightly. ‘They’re talking about us presenting a new series on ITV3. They say it’s like Mr & Mrs, whatever that is, but for millennials. Swifty’s making all kinds of waves in the biz. He’s going places, Abs.’

‘But you told everyone at the party the other night that we were soulmates.’

‘Oh, babes.’ She made a face, like, Bless. ‘That was just showbiz – I was telling everybody what they wanted to hear. Look, I got you back on the show. It’s a guest appearance, a cameo, but if you make a good fist of it, who knows? A producer out there might take notice.’

‘I don’t care about the show.’ His chest was clogged with emotion. ‘I thought you wanted me back, I thought you and me would make another go of it.’

‘Abs,’ she told him, not unkindly. ‘I love you, of course I do, and I always will. But not like that, not after…’

She bit her lip and he leaned forward. ‘Not after what, Kelz?’

‘That girl, Abs,’ she told him quietly. ‘The one who disappeared. It just don’t look good.’

He wanted to tell her that it had nothing to do with him, he was asleep, he was in a drunken stupor, it wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t say that because he may not have killed her, but he was guilty. Poor Rhiannon’s shocked, confused family had no idea what had happened to her, she had vanished off the face of the earth. He thought of the pain they must be in, her dad, her aunt and uncle, all the people who loved her. It was no wonder Davey Jenkins had gone wild with anger; if the shoe was on the other foot, Abs would have too. His heart clenched with grief and disgust.

When he closed his eyes, he saw the mud patter across her face in the shallow grave as her young body disappeared slowly into the ground. She would be gone now, reduced to cold bones.

Abs felt dizzy again, like he did when he’d woken up drunk in the middle of the night at the cottage, and the room had spun around him – the glass, the ceiling, the floor, the mattress – all of it churning and overlapping in his vision.