Mum kept telling him that accidents were no one’s fault, that he had to stop feeling guilty. She wanted to help but knew nothing. Neither did Penelope. ‘I don’t want help.’

‘Mr Wharton?’

He opened his eyes. He was alone in the courtroom, facing justice. With a guard, standing in the doorway. ‘There’s a recess. You need to go to the conference room.’

As though aware he might run, the guard escorted Caleb all the way there. Douglas and Mum stood, leaning at each other over the table as the door opened.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Douglas was demanding.

‘What we’ve paid you to do,’ Mum replied. ‘Saving my son.’

The strangest thing was what Caleb had seen going into Brunton for the first time after the fire. What had survived was nearly as incomprehensible as what had not. The BuyCheap Grocer, for instance. Gran used to bring him here. Ingrid at the counter asked rude questions, sometimes about Dad like she had a right to him. Caleb’s eyes had once been level with countertop displays of fudge and chocolate frogs in green alfoil, the right size for little fingers to pocket (if they weren’t watched). All that was still there. But the petrol station where Mum bought coffee for the homeless man was not. Penelope’s home was not, her family was not.

‘Caleb?’ Mum asked now. ‘Are you all right?’

She had to be fucking kidding.

Back in the courtroom, Douglas held the sketchbook and argued for its acceptance as evidence. ‘It illustrates events that day that my client is only now remembering.’

‘Inventing,’ Charles Scott speculated, sotto voce.

‘Defence experts will testify that after trauma memories take time to surface,’ Douglas continued.

‘You have experts, Mr Anderson? Already?’ Nina Haynes asked.

‘We will have experts.’

‘Yes, Mr Anderson. The court is aware of memory experts.’ The magistrate’s voice was very dry. ‘Why do the sketches matter?’

‘We believe the woman Caleb drew could herself have been responsible for lighting the fires. We believe it is in fact Shirley Laskin.’

PHOEBE

That was it. I had done the worst I could do. Now Caleb would be free. And Jack would hate me.

But first, to get through the afternoon. In the conference room, Caleb had been hysterical. Genevieve shook her head. ‘You’re blaming Shirley Laskin? And I thought I was ruthless.’ She passed me what felt like a child’s marble attached to a ring. Her pearl.

‘You were always a better mother than me,’ she murmured. ‘You would have been a better lawyer, too.’

I wasn’t proud of this and tried to return her ring, but she vanished into the crowd around Caleb and Douglas. I slid it onto my third finger for safekeeping. We were the same size. It fitted perfectly.