‘I’m late though,’ she says regretfully. ‘I should have prayed the Isha around eleven. I just didn’t notice the time.’

‘Does that matter?’ I ask awkwardly. She shrugs.

‘It’s not ideal, but we’re told that if it’s a sincere mistake, Allah forgives.’

‘Fatima,’ I say, and then stop. ‘Never mind.’

‘No, what?’

I take a breath. I’m not sure if what I’m about to say is very crass, I can’t tell any more. I press my hands to my eyes.

‘Nothing,’ I say. And then, in a rush, ‘Fatima, do you think – do you think that he forgives us? You, I mean?’

‘For what we did, you mean?’ Fatima asks, and I nod. She sits on the bed, begins to plait her hair, the rhythm of her fingers comforting in its regularity. ‘I hope so. The Koran teaches that Allah forgives all sins, if the sinner truly repents. And God knows, I have plenty to repent, but I’ve tried to atone for my part in what we did.’

‘What did we do, Fatima?’ I ask, and I’m not meaning to be quizzical or rhetorical, I suddenly, honestly, don’t even know. If you had asked me seventeen years ago, I would have said we did what was necessary to keep a friend safe. If you had asked me ten years ago I would have said we did something unforgivably stupid, that kept me awake at night in fear that a body would surface and I would be asked questions I could not bear to answer.

But now that body has surfaced, and the questions … the questions are waiting for us, little ambushes we can’t yet see. And I’m no longer sure.

We committed a crime, I’m sure of that. But did we do something worse, to Luc? Something that twisted him from the boy I remember into this angry man I barely recognise?

Perhaps our real crime was not against Ambrose, but against his children.

As I walk into Luc’s room, to lie in his bed, and stare into the darkness over the top of Freya’s sleeping head, that is what I keep asking myself. Did we do this to Luc?

I close my eyes, and his presence seems to fold around me, as real as the sheets that cling to my hot skin. He is here – just as much as the rest of us, and the thought should make me feel afraid, but it doesn’t. Because I can’t disentangle the man we met tonight from the boy I knew so many years ago, with his long hands, and golden eyes, and the husky, hesitant laugh that made my heart skip. And that boy is inside Luc somewhere, I saw it in his eyes, beneath the pain and the anger and the drink.

As I lie in bed, my arms around Freya, his words twist and tumble inside my head.

You want to know who’s responsible for the body in the Reach?

She whistles, and you come running, like dogs.

But it’s the last phrase, the one that comes into my head just as I am falling asleep and sticks there, that makes my arm tighten over her, so that she shifts and squirms in her sleep.

You’re welcome, Isa. Looking after your baby … it was nothing. I’d be happy to take her again.

‘ARE YOU SURE you don’t want a lift?’

Fatima stands by the door, her case in one hand and her sunglasses in the other. I shake my head, swallow the tea I am drinking.

‘No, it’s fine. I need to change Freya and pack, and I don’t want to hold you up.’

It’s a quarter to seven in the morning. I am curled on the sofa in a patch of morning sun playing with Freya, pretending to pinch off her nose and then put it back on. She bats at my hands, trying to catch at them with her little scratchy-soft nails, her eyes screwed up against the brightness of the sun reflecting off the Reach. Now I hold her hands gently, trying to stop her grabbing at my tea as I put it back on the floor.

‘You go, honestly.’

Thea and Kate are still asleep, but Fatima is itching to get away, back to Ali and the kids, I can see it. At last she nods, reluctantly, pushes the arms of her sunglasses beneath her hijab and feels in her pocket for her car keys.

‘How will you get to the station?’ she asks.

‘Taxi, maybe. I don’t know. I’ll sort it out with Kate.’

‘OK,’ Fatima says. She weighs the keys in her hand. ‘Say goodbye to them for me, and listen, please, try to get Kate to come, OK? I talked to her about it yesterday and she didn’t –’

‘She didn’t what?’

The voice comes from the floor above. Shadow gives a glad little whine and heaves himself up from his place in a puddle of sunshine by the window. Fatima and I look up to see Kate coming down the stairs in a sun-bleached cotton robe that was once navy blue, but now has only the faintest wash of colour in it. She is rubbing her eyes and trying not to yawn.

‘Going already?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Fatima says. ‘I’ve got to get back – I need to be at the surgery by noon, and Ali can’t pick up the kids tonight. But listen, Kate, I was just telling Isa – please, won’t you reconsider, come and stay for a few days? We’ve got the room.’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ Kate says flatly, but I can tell that her resolve isn’t quite as firm as she’s making out. She gets out the coffee maker from underneath the sink, a little tremor in her hands as she fills it up at the tap and pours in coffee. ‘What would I do with Shadow?’

‘You could bring him,’ Fatima says unconvincingly, but Kate is already shaking her head.

‘I know how Ali feels about dogs. Anyway, isn’t Sam allergic or something?’

‘There are dog sitters, aren’t there?’ Fatima pleads, but without conviction. We both know that Shadow is a reason, but not the reason. Kate will not leave, it’s as simple as that.

There’s a silence, broken only by the bubble of the moka on the stovetop, and Kate says nothing.

‘It’s not safe,’ Fatima says at last. ‘Isa – tell her. It’s not just the electrics – what about Luc – bloodstained notes and dead sheep, for goodness’ sake.’

‘We don’t know it was him,’ Kate says, her voice very low, but she’s not looking at either of us.

‘You should be reporting him to the police,’ Fatima says angrily, but we all know, without Kate having to say it, that’s never going to happen.

‘I give up,’ Fatima says at last. ‘I’ve said my piece. Kate – my spare room is always open to you, don’t forget that.’ She comes across, kisses us both. ‘Say goodbye to Thea for me,’ she says as she bends over me, her cheek warm against mine. Her perfume is heady in my nostrils as she whispers in my ear, ‘Please, Isa, try to change her mind. Maybe she’ll listen to you.’

Then she straightens up, picks up her bag, and a few minutes later we hear the sound of music and the roar of a car engine, and at last she is bumping away, up the sun-baked track towards Salten, and the silence washes back into the Mill.

‘Well,’ Kate says. She looks at me over the top of her coffee, raises one eyebrow, inviting me to sympathise with her in the face of Fatima’s paranoia, but I can’t do it. I don’t really believe that Luc would hurt Kate, or any of us for that matter, but I don’t think that Kate should stay here. Her nerves are stretched too thin, and sometimes I have the impression that she is very close to breaking point, closer than she realises, perhaps.

‘She’s right, Kate,’ I say. Kate rolls her eyes and takes another sip, but I push her, picking at the issue like Thea picking at the skin around her nails, until it bleeds. ‘And she’s right about the stuff with the sheep too – that was a pretty sick stunt.’

Kate doesn’t respond, just stares down into her coffee.

‘It … it was Luc, wasn’t it?’ I say at last.

‘I don’t know,’ Kate says heavily. She puts the cup down and pushes her hands through her hair. ‘I was telling the truth when I said that. Yes, he’s angry, but he – he’s not the only person around here with a grudge against me.’

‘What?’ This is the first I’ve heard of this, and I can’t hide my shock. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The girls at school aren’t the only people who spread rumours, Isa. Dad had a lot of friends. I … don’t.’