We both turn as the front door opens and Lena steps out, a cigarette in her hand, flanked by Max and Sean. It goes unspoken that we’re out here so that anything we say about the discovery in Dean House doesn’t drift up to Julia, but now that we’re gathered here, no one has anything to say. Max won’t look at me. Is it because of the car accident or the disaster of our night in my flat?

The others look like strangers and the gap where Bella should be is like a gaping wound only I can see and feel. I think about the murdered girls, the summer of death, the killings that stopped and never got solved. Max is white-faced, a shaking mess, the bruise on his forehead an accusation I look away from. Lena’s pacing up and down and Jack and Sean…their faces are inscrutable. What’s going on in their heads? It was their house, their dad’s house. Very soon, the police are going to be here to ask questions.

“They might not be human,” Max says. “It could just be animal bones.”

But none of us believes that. Jack actually laughs. “Seriously, Max? I hope that forensic team can tell the difference—I don’t think the police want to talk to us about the bones of some dead dog.”

“Sorry,” Max says. “I’m not…it’s just…Jesus. A body? In your garden? What the hell is going on?”

“Not quite in the garden,” Jack says. “But close enough. Technically, the land they found it on belongs—belonged—to us.”

I find I’m shaking, trembling from head to foot. It’s too close to where Bella died. It’s too close to where Julia lies dying. It’s too much damned death.

“It’s our house,” Sean says, looking at his brother. “Or it was. The police are going to want to speak to us. Can you stay? Will it be okay with Dani?”

Dani. Jack’s wife. It’s disorienting, looking at him and seeing this grown man, married with a child. He keeps doubling in my mind, replaced with the Jack I remember from ten years ago.

Jack shrugs. “It’s fine. She’ll understand.”

“But the bones could have been there for decades,” I burst out. “They could have been there before any of us ever came to this village.”

Sean shrugs. “But until they work that out, they’re going to want to talk to anyone who has a connection to the house.”

“Well, shit—that’s all of us,” Lena says. “How the hell am I meant to explain that to my boss if I have to take more time off?”