His face paled. He glanced at the minister and pressed a finger to his lips. Then he pointed to the microphone on the desk in front of where Geoffrey Heathcote, Cabinet minister and high-profile member of Her Majesty’s government, was seated.

A tiny light was on. His microphone was live and broadcasting to the nation.

10

The village is how I remember it, but different.

The Hope and Anchor stands on the green, as it always did. But now the faded sign that used to creak in the wind is freshly painted. Clean windows and glossy brickwork. Chalkboards promising expensive charcuterie and craft beers. A curl of smoke rises from the chimney and dissolves into the cold air.

I walked these streets as a child. I played on the green and spent my pocket money in the village shop. Picked apples from Mrs Guthrie’s orchard and fed the horses who lived on the farm. Easter egg hunts and harvest festivals. Carol-singing on frosty days. A safe place to grow up. We rode our bikes everywhere, the Carter sisters and I. Until the murders, and then I stopped being a child and became a liar.

Saltbox Hill looms in the distance, the branches of the lone tree on its crest clutching at the sky. I wonder if scorch marks still scar the trunk. I wonder if lightning has ever struck there again.

Lawrie is already outside Hilltop House when I pull up. He’s huddled with three or four rival reporters, comparing notes, exchanging information. It’s a delicate dance. Don’t give away too much, just enough to stay in the game when it counts.

My hands are shaking so I grip the steering wheel until they’ve steadied. Hilltop House may have a different name now but I can see through its windows and into the shadows of its past. It whispers and teases me. The sound of music. Laughing with the Carter sisters. Mrs Carter’s lemon-scented candles. The heavy heat of hiding under the duvet with Shannon.

A bar of chocolate is on the passenger seat. I break off the first strip. Six squares. It sticks to my teeth and tongue. Rinse and repeat until half the bar is gone.

Get out of the car, Brinley.

I force myself to look at the house next door. My house. Once Mum had passed away, I couldn’t bear to live there, the sense of loss pressing up against me, pinning me down until I could no longer breathe, the fresh, clean air of my childhood polluted by lies. In the space of six months, everything changed. My father became a stranger to me. My mother was dead. The girls next door were gone. And so was I.