“I was going to. It was one of the things I came back to ask, before it’s too late. But when I went in to see her…I can’t be angry anymore. She’s dying, there’s nothing left of the woman who made me so angry.” His face twists and I think maybe there is still some anger left there.

“Jack got expelled from school after Ellie died. Did she ever tell you?”

I shake my head. “I thought he dropped out.”

We’re talking in whispers. Julia’s door is ajar and I take another step away. Sean follows, standing too close, so I can smell the toothpaste on his breath, the fading scent of shower gel. His hair is still damp.

“He refused to go back after her funeral, so Dad got him a job, packed him off so he wouldn’t embarrass the family. And then Mum left. We were there, floundering after Ellie’s death, and she just walked away and left us. She didn’t tell us, didn’t come and see me at school or go and see Jack. We just got a call from Dad to say she’d walked out. No one hears anything from her and then a few weeks later she moves in with Leo. Jack was so pissed off when she moved in here—he walked out of his job to go and see Dad.”

“I’m sorry.” As I say it, my heart is hammering. When Julia moved in it was the same time as Nicole went missing. Didn’t Greg claim both the boys were away—Jack working and Sean at school? “Did you come back as well?”

“No. I stayed at school. I know Dad tried to persuade Jack to give school another go but he flat-out refused, so Dad packed him off to work with yet another of his construction mates.”

“Did he…was he here long?” How long was it between Nicole going missing and her body being found?

Sean looks at me oddly. “I don’t know. A couple of days or so.” He pauses. “He said he was going to see Dad, but I think he was looking for Mum.”

The shock of Julia moving in got lost when Nicole went missing. Nicole’s murder stopped any of us from wondering about Dad and Julia’s relationship and how long it had been going on. They must have been seeing each other in the months before she left Greg, but Dad never said a word. And if Jack was looking for her, why not just knock on the door? He knew where she was. Was he spying on us? I think of all the time I used to spend alone in the woods back then and repaint it in my imagination, Jack watching from behind every tree. I go hot at the thought of what else he might have seen.