Owen throws a look at Barry. There’s something different about him. About his demeanour, the tone of his voice. A new softness. A new care. It’s almost, Owen thinks, as if Barry believes him.

DI Currie is going through her paperwork. ‘Did we send someone up on to the garage roof?’ she asks DI Henry.

DI Henry consults his own paperwork, flicks through it blindly. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll check it out.’

DI Currie slowly rests her hands on top of her paperwork and looks at Owen. She says, ‘Excuse us, please, we’ll be right back.’

As they leave the room Barry turns to Owen and, for the first time since Owen was brought in on Friday morning, he smiles.

‘Good work,’ he says. ‘Very good work. Now let’s see what they come back with.’

49

Cate’s phone vibrates on the kitchen table. She picks it up and looks at the screen. It’s Elona, Tilly’s mum.

‘Cate?’

‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Hi!’

‘Hi. It’s Elona. I wondered if you had time to talk?’

‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Yes. Totally.’

‘I spoke to Tilly. Last night. About the thing that happened. She got very upset. I think she was shocked, in a way, that I was mentioning it again. I think she thought it was over. She kept saying, Why are you asking me this, why are you asking? But Cate, she started to cry and then she said, I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you. And I said what? And she said, It’s bad. I can’t. She said – and here I am reading between the lines somewhat because she was not making much sense – but I think she was telling me that it did happen, that it happened and that she knows the person who did it, but she seemed scared, Cate, too scared to tell me who it was.’

Cate’s thoughts spiral dizzyingly back to the night of the twenty-first. Tilly in the kitchen. Curry on the hob. Josh saying, ‘I’m in the mood for something spicy.’ Tilly leaving. The four of them sitting down to eat. It had been four, hadn’t it? She squints to bring the image into focus: curry, table, Georgia, Roan, Josh. Had they sat down to eat when Tilly came back? No, it was too soon. She must still have been laying the table or serving up the food. She can’t remember who was in the kitchen then. She knows Georgia was there. And Roan and Josh must have been there too. She’s quite sure.

But even as she thinks this, she feels doubts crawl in and start to cloud her memory.

‘Right,’ she says briskly to Elona. ‘Well, thank you for letting me know.’

‘But who?’ says Elona, her voice tinged with desperation. ‘If it happened? If it did, and she’s too scared to say? Who might it have been?’

‘I have no idea, Elona. I’m so sorry.’

‘Should I go back to the police, do you think?’

‘Gosh, I really don’t know. It doesn’t sound like Tilly’s ready to talk about it …’

‘But if they’re investigating this guy, the one who attacked the woman behind the estate agent, this could be … it might be the same guy, yes? And they should know?’

‘I really don’t know, I really …’

‘I’m scared, Cate. What if this guy, what if he’s still out there and he’s following Tilly? If she knows the attacker then he might know where she lives, where we live? What shall I do, Cate? What shall I do?’

Cate’s stomach roils. She pulls the phone away from her ear and catches her breath. She puts it back a second later and says, ‘I’m sorry, Elona. I really am, but I have to go now. I’m really sorry.’

And then she ends the call.

50

Lunch is a thin ham sandwich, raw carrots, orange squash, a blueberry muffin. Such a shame about the blueberries. Owen picks them out and leaves them on the side of the tray.

The atmosphere has changed since this morning, since he recalled the missing section of the night of the fourteenth. He’s pretty sure he’s being seen less as a twisted child killer and more as someone who might not actually have done it after all. But then his thoughts go back to the morning’s papers, to the fake story planted by Bryn. Whatever happens here, inside these walls, however soon he is allowed to go home, charges dropped, maybe with a pair of apologetic handshakes from DIs Currie and Henry, regardless of anything that happens here before he gets to go home, he will still be the man on the front page of the papers, with the bloody forehead and the incel associations and the underwear drawer full of date-rape drugs. He will always be the guy who called a strange woman a bitch and who had a girl’s blood on the wall outside his bedroom, who was sacked for sweating on a girl at a disco. He will always be Owen Pick, the weird, creepy guy who maybe hadn’t killed Saffyre Maddox but sure as dammit had done something.

The door opens and the detectives return. They sit neatly and look at Owen. DI Currie says, ‘Well, we sent someone up on to the garage roof. Just got their early findings back. Footprints that match Saffyre’s trainers. Her fingerprints on the guttering. No evidence of you being up there. But, Owen, we can’t take your word for what you say you remember happening that night. We are not ready to drop you from the investigation. Nowhere near. So. Anything you suddenly remember, please share it with us.’

They straighten their files, and leave.

Owen looks at Barry and exhales.

‘We’re getting there,’ says Barry. ‘We’re getting there.’

And then he says, ‘Oh, by the way, Tessie just forwarded something to me. An email. Would you like to see it?’

‘Erm, yes. Sure.’

Barry switches on his smartphone and slides it across the table to Owen.

It’s from Deanna.

Dear Tessie

Thank you so much for your email regarding your nephew, Owen. While I had a very pleasant evening with Owen on Valentine’s night, I think I have enough baggage in my life right now without taking on any more. I have no idea what to make of his arrest or of the newspaper reports about his history and background. They do not square with the man I had dinner with, who was gentle, civilised and thoughtful. But then people can hide a lot of darkness behind carefully constructed masks, can’t they? I feel sad that you are going through this and I hope, for your sake, and for Owen’s, that this all blows over and that it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity. Please do tell him that I’m thinking of him, but that I cannot possibly consider taking things any further with him in the light of the current situation.

Wishing you all the best, Yours

Deanna Wurth

Owen reads it twice. His eye settles on the words of hope. He notes that nowhere in the message does she say she believes he is capable of murder. Nowhere does she say she never wants to see him again. Nowhere does she say she hates him or is appalled by him. This, he thinks, is a chink of light. Something to hold on to.

51

Josh gets back from school late that evening. He comes, as ever, directly into the kitchen and hugs Cate, his skin still cold from outdoors. ‘Love you.’

‘Love you too.’ The words feel stilted as they leave her lips.

Then she says, quickly, before he leaves the room, before she loses her nerve, ‘Josh. Can I ask you something? A bit of a strange question?’

He turns and looks at her. He looks thin, she notes, the dips below his cheekbones pronounced and shadowed. ‘Yes?’

‘I was in your room yesterday.’

His eyes widen and bulge slightly in their sockets, barely perceptible but just enough to betray his anxiety. ‘Yeah?’

‘I was getting your dirty laundry. And there was a bag, behind the basket. Had some of your dad’s running gear in it. Any idea why?’

There’s a beat of silence. Then Josh says, ‘I went for a run.’

‘You went for a run? When?’

‘I dunno. A few times.’

Cate closes her eyes. She thinks of the way he moves, her second-born child, so slowly. Always a few paces behind. She remembers when he was younger, the countless times she’d have to pause on the pavement and wait for him to catch up with her. ‘Stop dawdling,’ she’d say. ‘Come on!’ And even now, at almost six feet, he still walks like a slug. He does everything slowly. She cannot picture him running. She says, ‘Really? You?’

‘Yeah. Why not?’

‘Because … I don’t know. You’re not the running type.’

‘Well. People change, don’t they?’

She sighs. ‘I suppose they do, yes. But here’s a weird thing. I didn’t wash the kit; I left it there. But now it’s gone and your dad’s wearing it again and says he found it in his drawer.’

Josh shrugs, moves one foot in front of the other. ‘Yeah. I washed it.’

‘You washed it?’

‘Yeah.’

She closes her eyes again. ‘So, let me get this straight. You borrowed your dad’s kit to go running in. Without ever telling me that you were going running. You left it in a carrier bag at the back of your wardrobe. Then you got it out, washed it, dried it, put it back in your dad’s drawers?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand, Josh. It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘What doesn’t make any sense? It makes total sense.’