First bewilderment, then crushing disappointment swept across Bailey.

‘No, Jennifer! Please! We can still—’

‘This is where we say goodbye, Bailey.’

A kaleidoscope of childhood memories tore through Bailey and she was gripped by a reflexive primal love. This was her sister. For so long they’d been apart. And now, too soon, she would be gone again forever.

‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘Please, Jennifer! Don’t go!’

But Jennifer had already turned on her heels and had begun to stalk off through the mist.

Bailey started to follow, but her steps soon petered out for she knew deep down that it would be futile to pursue her.

‘Jennifer,’ she whispered sadly. ‘You don’t know how much I missed you.’

But Jennifer had gone, the mist closing like curtains behind her.

61

Bailey left the cemetery in a daze, walking along the pavement oblivious to the world waking up around her. It was getting on towards eight o’clock and it looked like the mist was starting to lift. The streets were busier now and the traffic was picking up as people headed to work and went about their ordinary lives. But that all seemed like a meaningless facade to Bailey right now.

She reached her car but kept on walking. She needed to walk. She needed to think. She needed to get her head straight. The shockwaves of the meeting were still reverberating through her.

Jennifer was alive.

One part of Bailey desperately wanted to rejoice at the fact. But at the same time she was profoundly disturbed. Her sister was rotten to the core, irredeemably damaged. Bailey could understand this in part, given the disgusting and awful things Jennifer had been put through as a child, but it distressed her deeply to see that there was absolutely no light left inside her sister that she could grasp onto.

How could she ever tell her parents? The truth of it would probably finish her dad off for good. In some ways, Bailey wished she’d never gone down this road.

The thoughts turned over and over in her mind. Enough to drive her crazy. It was like a rug had been pulled out from under her. Her whole world had collapsed in a single encounter and she wondered if she’d ever be able to rebuild it. Right at this moment it didn’t seem so.

She trudged along the pavement, robotically putting one foot in front of the other. And after a while she became aware of a car driving along slowly beside her. She turned to look, recognising the midnight-silver colour of Dale’s Tesla Model S.

Bailey stopped. The window wound down. Dale looked out at her with an expression of concern on his face.

‘You promised not to come here,’ she said accusingly.

‘I was worried about you.’

‘Did you follow me into the cemetery?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t want to risk messing up your meeting. So I waited up the road in my car. It seemed better than nothing.’ He eyed her anxiously. ‘I’ve been following you for the past five minutes or so. You’ve been walking along in a complete daze. What the hell happened in there? Thank God you’re safe at least.’