‘Cecilia?’

Both women looked up. It was John-Paul.

‘Cecilia. They want us to sign some forms –’ He stopped, and saw Rachel.

‘Hello Mrs Crowley,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ said Rachel.

She couldn’t move. It was as though she was anaesthetised. Here was her daughter’s murderer standing in front of her. An exhausted, distressed, middle-aged father, with red-rimmed eyes and grey stubble. It was impossible. He had nothing to do with Janie. He was much too old. Too grown-up.

Cecilia said, ‘I told her, John-Paul.’

John-Paul took a step back, as if someone had tried to hit him.

He briefly closed his eyes, and then he opened them and looked straight down at Rachel, with such sick regret in his eyes, there was longer any doubt in her mind.

‘But why?’ Rachel said, and she was struck by how civilised and ordinary she sounded, discussing her daughter’s murder in the middle of the day, while dozens of people walked by, ignoring them, assuming theirs was just another unremarkable conversation. ‘Could you please tell me why you would do such a thing? She was just a little girl.’

John-Paul ducked his head and ran both his hands through his nice respectable hair, and when he looked up again, it was as though his face had shattered into a thousand pieces. ‘It was an accident, Mrs Crowley. I never meant to hurt her, because, you see, I loved her. I really loved her.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his nose, in a careless, hopeless gesture, like a drunk on a street corner. ‘I was a stupid teenage boy. She told me she was seeing someone else, and then she laughed at me. I’m so sorry, but that’s the only reason I have. I know it’s no reason at all. I loved her, and then she laughed at me.’

Cecilia was dimly aware that people continued to move through the corridor where they sat. They hurried by or strolled, they gesticulated and laughed, they talked animatedly into mobile phones. Nobody stopped to observe the white-haired woman sitting straight-backed in the brown leather chair, her gnarled hands gripping the sides, her eyes fixed on the middle-aged man who stood in front of her, his head bowed in deep contrition, his neck exposed, his shoulders slumped. Nobody seemed to notice anything extraordinary about their frozen bodies, their silence. They were in their own little bubble, separated from the rest of humanity.

Cecilia felt the cool, smooth leather of the chair beneath her hands, and suddenly the air rushed from her lungs.

‘I need to get back to Polly,’ she said, and stood up so fast that her head swum.

How much time had passed? How long had they been out here? She felt a panicky sensation, as if she’d deserted Polly. She looked at Rachel and thought: I can’t care about you right now.

‘I need to talk to Polly’s doctor again,’ she said to Rachel.

‘Of course you do,’ said Rachel.

John-Paul held out his palms to Rachel, his wrists upwards as if he was waiting to be handcuffed. ‘I know that I don’t have any right to ask you this, Rachel, Mrs Crowley, I have no right to ask you anything, but you see, Polly needs us both right now, so I just need time –’

‘I’m not taking you away from your daughter,’ interrupted Rachel. She sounded brisk and furious, as if Cecilia and John-Paul were badly behaved teenagers. ‘I’ve already . . .’ She stopped, swallowed, and looked up at the ceiling as if she was trying to suppress the urge to be sick. She shooed them away. ‘Go. Just go to your little girl. Both of you.’

Chapter fifty-one

It was late Easter Saturday night and Will and Tess were hiding eggs in her mother’s backyard. They both held bags of tiny eggs, the ones wrapped in shiny-coloured foil.

When Liam was very little they used to put the eggs in plain sight, or even just scatter them across the grass, but as he’d got older he preferred the challenge of a tricky Easter egg hunt with Tess humming the soundtrack to Mission Impossible while Will timed him on a stopwatch.

‘I suppose we couldn’t put some of them in the guttering?’ Will looked up at the roof. ‘We could leave a ladder somewhere handy.’

Tess gave the sort of polite chuckle she’d give to an acquaintance or a client.

‘Guess not,’ said Will. He sighed, and carefully placed a blue one in the corner of a windowsill that Liam would have to stand on tippy-toes to reach.

Tess unwrapped an egg and ate it. The last thing Liam needed was more chocolate. Sweetness filled her mouth. She herself had eaten so much chocolate this week, if she didn’t watch it she’d end up the size of Felicity.

The casually cruel thought came automatically into her head like an old lyric, and she realised how often she must have thought it. ‘The size of Felicity’ was still her definition of unacceptably fat, even now, when Felicity had a slim, gorgeous body that was better than hers.

‘I can’t believe you thought we could all just live together!’ she exploded. She saw Will steel himself.

This was the way it had been ever since he had finally turned up at her mother’s house the previous day, pale and discernibly thinner than the last time she’d seen him. Her mood kept swinging about precariously. One minute she was cool and sarcastic, the next she was hysterical and weepy. She couldn’t seem to get a hold of herself.

Will turned to face her, the bag of chocolate eggs in the palm of his hand. ‘I didn’t really think that,’ he said.

‘But you said it! On Monday, you said it.’

‘It was idiotic. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘All I can do is keep saying I’m sorry.’

‘You sound robotic,’ said Tess. ‘You don’t even mean it any more. You’re just saying the words in the hope I’ll finally shut up.’ She spoke in a monotone. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘I do mean it,’ said Will wearily.

‘Shhh,’ said Tess, although he hadn’t really spoken that loudly. ‘You’ll wake them.’ Liam and her mother were both in bed asleep. Their rooms were at the front of the house and they were both deep sleepers. They probably wouldn’t wake them even if they started yelling at each other.

There had been no yelling. Not yet. Just these short, useless conversations that travelled bitterly down one-way streets.

Their reunion the previous day had been both surreal and mundane; an exasperating clash of personalities and emotion. For a start there was Liam, who was almost deranged with excitement. It was like he’d sensed the danger of losing his father, and the safe little structure of his life, and now his relief at Will’s return manifested itself in six-year-old craziness. He spoke in annoying silly voices, he giggled maniacally, he wanted to wrestle constantly with his father. Will, on the other hand, was completely traumatised by witnessing Polly Fitzpatrick’s accident. ‘You should have seen the expressions on the parents’ faces,’ he kept saying quietly to Tess. ‘Imagine if that was Liam. If that was us.’