I didn’t want to hear about what Mike was doing – a vague sense it would be something I didn’t want to know – so I pulled away. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. Listen, Cal – I think I just saw Jodi in the next quad.’ I hadn’t, but I wanted him to go, I wanted out of this situation.

His face looked woebegone, and I didn’t understand why. Again, he put his hand on me, this time around my waist. The other too. Oh no, I thought. ‘Cal – I have to go.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you.’ His breath was boozy, and for a second I panicked that this was all going to go wrong, but then Bill was there.

‘Everything OK?’ There was a bottle of champagne in his hands.

‘Fine.’ Callum released me and I stepped back. ‘Cal’s just a bit drunk. He’s going to find Jodi now, aren’t you?’

Cal nodded, sadly. ‘OK.’

‘Come on, Bill.’ I felt him hesitate, knowing he should stay, that something was going on that needed to be smoothed over, but I pulled him on and he came, and we walked out of the quad and through the lodge, into the street.

‘We could go to the park,’ he suggested. ‘See the sun rise there. Come back for breakfast.’

‘Let’s do it.’ And we left. I’m not sure of the timings for that night. I’ve always wondered what difference these small interactions on the lawn made – if they made any difference at all. If by arguing with him I’d kept Mike back for a crucial moment, allowing someone to slip into the garden and hurt Martha, or if Martha was already dead by then, behind the wall in the Fellows’ Garden, while the rest of us danced and drank and kissed just metres away.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I kept checking my suitcase obsessively. Did I have my purse, my phone, my charger? It was so long since I’d spent a night away. ‘You will be good?’ The pleading note was back. ‘I mean, you better be good.’ Could I really leave, when Cassie was in such a slump, hardly getting out of bed unless dragged? I’d even seen her leave her phone switched off, which was unheard of. Probably the picture was still circling. Maybe it would never truly go away.

‘But where are you going?’ Benji still looked confused, standing in the doorway of the bedroom as I crammed clothes in my case. I’d shouted at him so rarely in his ten golden years on the planet. ‘And who’s going to mind us?’

‘I’m – I have some things to sort out. To help Daddy.’ Although it seemed like such a long shot that my breath bunched up under my ribs.

‘But who’s going to mind us, Mummy?’