A rush of sympathy for them both fills me up because I’m one of only three people who know exactly what Sara sacrificed for Shannon, and what it must have cost her.

Is still costing her.

Fragments of memory tease me. The feel of the tiles against my back in the bathroom at Hilltop House. Sara’s murmurings through the door. The catch-in-the-throat smell of congealing blood, ripening as the hours passed.

The truth has many faces and I wear them all.

I am a good person, but I was complicit, and the guilt of what I’ve done hems every aspect of my life.

The sky is pricked with stars that blur into flowers of light. With the end of my scarf, I dry my tears, a quick, rough gesture, and try to push down the rising well of heat and sadness that is threatening to overflow.

For years, the facts of that night have stayed buried in the ground, hidden amongst the bones of Dr and Mrs Carter and the dirt of our lies. But decay has a way of pushing to the surface, of spreading its spores until the rot has found a foothold and spoils everything from within.

Lawrie and the other journalist are still talking. Before I can think about what I’m doing, before I can examine the motives or the repercussions, the rights and wrongs, I walk swiftly to my car and let myself in.

Under the interior light, I scribble a note on lined paper from my pad. The handwriting is scruffy, the words hasty and uneven, but heartfelt. My breath lingers in the freezing air like a wraith.

I fold the scrap of paper in two and rummage in my work bag for an envelope. It’s bent in the middle, a grubby mark on its white expanse, but it will do. I hesitate over the name, but in the end I print Sara on the outside, because that was her name and she’ll always be Sara to me.

Then I’m walking right up to her front door, vaguely aware of Lawrie calling to me, the other journalists advancing behind me, convinced I know something they don’t, but I don’t acknowledge any of them. I don’t even turn around. Instead I bend down and push it through the letter box before I have a chance to change my mind.

47

The Justice Secretary unlocked the cabinet and removed a bottle of eye-wateringly expensive Scotch whisky and a crystal cut-glass tumbler.

Heathcote sat at his desk, poured himself two fingers’ worth and downed it in one swallow before measuring out another. The fumes on his breath leaked into his Commons office, a peaty scent of fire and earth. If his career was over, he’d damn well go down in style.