Time has clouded the glass of my memories. It’s been twenty-one years and I cannot summon the rise and fall of her voice, the pressure of her hand on mine. I remember her wedding ring, the scent of her perfume, the material parts that made her my mother. But the physical side – the softness of her body, the lilt of her laugh – are lost somewhere down the years, faded from overuse, misshapen from being taken out and pored over.

My family home, on the other hand, hasn’t changed at all.

Lawrie is walking towards me. I make myself open the car door, and offer him the bar of chocolate. It buys enough time to salve the burn of tears at the back of my throat.

‘You made it.’ He breaks off a couple of squares, but isn’t smiling. Anxiety tugs at me.

‘What’s up?’

‘The Daily Mail is on to something,’ he says.

‘How do you know?’

‘They’ve come mob-handed, but only two of them are here. Which begs the question: where are the rest of them?’

He breaks off another piece of chocolate without asking. I like that about him. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he says, pushing it into his mouth. ‘I bet they’ve got a brilliant lead elsewhere and they’re chasing it up.’

‘So how do you want to play this?’ I wouldn’t usually defer in this way, but Lawrie is the chief reporter. This is his circus. For now, anyway.

He checks his watch. ‘I’m going to head to the school. See if I can talk to a receptionist or the headteacher, try and dig out some old photographs. They’ll probably give me short shrift, but at least I’ll be there when the school day ends and can chat to some of the parents.’ The wind knifes at us both and he buttons up his coat. ‘Why don’t you try the houses up and down this road? See what they can tell us about the Carters. Knock at Hilltop. Find out what it’s like to live at the scene of a brutal double murder.’

With that, he’s gone.

I want to tell him I was a pupil at the school he is talking about. That I know what it’s like to crawl through the broken glass of a shattered community. That walking up the path to Hilltop House is like walking in the blood-soaked footsteps of a ghost.

I will tell him.