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Del shakes his head. ‘Charlie, look . . .’ A pause as he considers, then another sigh. ‘Okay, I’m not supposed to show you this. So this is just between you and me. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Toxicology is back.’

‘Already? You’re kidding?’

‘Someone put a rush on it. I couldn’t believe it myself.’

I take a breath. ‘Was it sleeping tablets?’

‘What? No.’ Del sighs. ‘Look, Charlie. Her blood alcohol levels – they were pretty high. One hundred and ten milligrams of alcohol per hundred millilitres of blood. Bear in mind that the drink-drive limit is eighty milligrams. She was drunk. If she wasn’t much of a drinker . . .’

‘Her family says she isn’t.’

‘Well, in that case the amount of alcohol in her bloodstream would have been enough to make her pretty loaded. Maybe enough that she wouldn’t have realised what she was doing, where she was walking.’ Del studies me. ‘I spoke to some of the boys in Traffic, the ones who did the follow-up investigation. She spent the night in some bar, looked to be drunk when she left. Look, I know this isn’t what you want to hear and, believe me, I’m as surprised as you are. I mean, I wasn’t friends with her in school or anything, but she seemed a nice girl. But then, Charlie, you just never know. Lots of people aren’t who you first think they are. If you’re asking me for my professional opinion, it looks like she was out partying, that she decides to make her way home, takes a wrong turn and ends up on the motorway. She’s disoriented, ends up in the centre of the carriageway. She could have come from the hard shoulder. We don’t have the CCTV, no one saw her. We just can’t say for sure.’ Shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I know this isn’t what you want to hear.’

‘What about her necklace?’

‘Huh?’

‘She always wore a necklace: gold with the word “Emily” on it. Her parents say it’s missing. Did you ever find it?’

Del shakes his head. ‘Sorry!’

I sit there for long moments. ‘You know about the police report she made on the Sunday night, right? The night before she died? You know she was the first one to report the man with the gun at Mount Pleasant Hospital?’

‘I know, Charlie. But there’s no connection. There’s nothing to suggest that her death was anything but an accident. Or . . .’

‘Or what?’

‘Nah – nothing.’

‘What?’

He isn’t looking at me, is examining his desk, his fingers, anything but me. ‘Or she could have done it on purpose.’

I stare at him. ‘You mean, suicide?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s possible.’ Then, finally, he looks at me. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’

It takes me a moment, time to gather myself, think of what Alexandra Wilson had said: that Emily had been quiet, not herself. Could she have been suicidal? And if she had been, was that really the way she would have done it? Then, with Herculean effort, I nod slowly, force a smile, like it really doesn’t matter to me. ‘No worries.’ I push myself up from the seat, limbs loose. ‘You going to the funeral?’

Del nods. ‘See you there?’

I don’t know what I was expecting, coming here today. I’m not sure what it was I wanted to hear. After all, Emily was a grown woman. So she wasn’t the girl I remember from school. I’m fairly sure that she’d have said the same about me. And maybe it was all just a coincidence: that she had seen the gunman, that she had called the police and twenty-four hours later was dead.

I’m not looking where I’m going, have walked along the corridor, reached the key-padded door before I even remember where I am. Am just about to turn around, ask Del to let me out, when the door buzzes, is pulled outwards.

Aden is wearing jeans, a loose-fitting shirt. Pulls up when he sees me, a sudden moment of confusion. ‘Hey. What are you doing here?’

‘I . . . um.’ For a moment I am thrown, can’t seem to get my words to line up in the proper order. Then I grin, shrug. ‘Had to see a man about a dog.’

He smiles, comforted by the fact that this is the way we’re going to play it, easy and loose. ‘Don’t trust any of the buggers here. They’ll sell you a shih-tzu and tell you it’s a greyhound.’

His sunglasses are tucked at the collar of his shirt, weighting it down. Sprouts of chest-hair work their way free, like spring shoots reaching for the sun, and it occurs to me how rarely I see him with his clothes on, and this one thought makes me flush. I duck my head, pretend to be glancing at my watch, and curse myself for being such a girl. ‘I thought you were on nights last night? Did you sleep?’

Aden shrugs. ‘I had a couple of hours, then . . . you know how it is. I’m not great at sleeping in the day. Anyway I’m not stopping.’ He nods to himself, like he’s answering a question that I haven’t asked. ‘I left my wallet in my locker this morning.’

‘Oh.’ I glance over my shoulder. The corridor is still silent, empty but for us and our inane twittering. ‘I was going to ask – you seemed a little . . . ah . . . off this morning. Is everything okay? I mean, I know it’s tough, what with the civil case and all, but I just thought . . .’

Aden stands there for a moment, not looking at me, and I can see in his eyes that’s he’s calculating, weighing up the cost/benefit of confiding in me. Then he looks up. ‘I just . . . There’s something that’s been bothering me, and I don’t really know what to do with it.’

‘Okay.’ I widen my stance, nod, waiting.

Aden glances over his shoulder. ‘Look, are you . . . I mean, do you have a couple of minutes?’

I don’t even look at my watch, know for a fact that I have fifteen minutes to make it to the council meeting, that I’m cutting it fine already. ‘Of course.’

THE HEAT SHIMMERED
above the tarmac on the hill, spilling across the road in front of them. The houses huddled together, seemed to push away the gaze of passing cars, paintwork cracking like too much make-up on an elderly woman. Every now and again, through a gap in the houses, was the sea, a dim and distant shimmer on the horizon. Aden leaned his arm through the open passenger window, heat from above and below, searing. There was a smell, stockpiled rubbish. Bins lined the pavement, spilling nappies and takeaway cartons onto the street. Someone had dragged a television outside, had left it balanced precariously on top of the wall, its glass punched out, a hollow shell left behind. Aden watched as it slipped past, his gaze trickling from the broken-down television to Charlie, one hand loose on the steering wheel, her hair whipping in the breeze.

‘I’m sorry about the air conditioning.’ She glanced at him, pulled a face. ‘I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.’

Aden smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter. I like the breeze.’

They had walked in silence out of the still, hot police station. Aden had smelled her perfume, thought that she smelled of lemon. Had slipped into the lobby, pushed through the people thronging reception, sweat mixing with the sweet tang of alcohol. Through the sticky bodies, out into the street.

Charlie had glanced around. ‘So, what’s up?’

But then Aden didn’t know where to begin. ‘I, ah . . .’ Wasn’t looking at her, was watching the crowd inside the lobby; a perilously thin man, alight with tattoos, gesturing wildly at the receptionist. ‘You know the Lowe family, don’t you?’

She had looked at him then, curiosity and caution combined. ‘I, well – kind of. Why?’

How did he begin to explain? The boy’s face, haunting him, filling up his dreams. The muzzle-flash in the darkness, the sound of a body crumpling to the ground. How did he begin to explain that it is all he could think of, that his brain was twisting it, turning it constantly round and round, trying to make it fit. What would make the boy – a good boy, a steady boy – turn, levelling a gun at firearms officers. And now, this patrolling the hospital, the same hospital where Dylan Lowe lay, night after night, waiting for a man with a gun, for the other shoe to drop. And all the while Aden’s brain trying to make sense of the fact that his trigger finger had stayed resolutely still, while the night lit up around him. That he had failed.

Charlie had watched him.

Aden had shrugged. ‘I need to know why.’

And that was it – all she had needed. Charlie had nodded. ‘Okay. What can I do?’

Aden had run his hand through his hair. The man behind the glass had settled down now, had slumped into a plastic chair, spindly arms crossed across his vest. ‘I don’t know. I’m just trying to understand everything that happened. There are so many bits that I can’t remember about that night. I just can’t seem to piece it all together. And it’s like it’s all I can think about. I don’t know what to do.’ He had looked back at her, shrugged. ‘Stupid, I know.’

Charlie had frowned. ‘You been back there?’

‘You mean, Harddymaes?’

‘I was just thinking, maybe it would help. You know, help you remember?’

Aden had hesitated. Then, a nod. ‘Yeah, perhaps you’re right.’

Charlie had pulled her keys free. ‘I’ll drive.’

There was the off-licence, where it had all begun, the metal shutter pulled half down even in full daylight, a heavy steel door propped open, in unwilling welcome. Looked like it was waiting for nuclear war. Aden stared at it. There were posters in the window, radioactive-green bottles of Sourz. No sign of the cracks that there had been, radiating out across the glass. But then of course it would have been replaced by now, would not have lasted almost a year, not in this neighbourhood.

Aden’s hand danced on the burning metal.

He hadn’t been here, not since that night, with the rain and the sirens and the finger that just wouldn’t move. But what had avoidance got him? Nightmares and flashbacks, and the perpetual feeling of failure. And he couldn’t run for the rest of his life. He glanced at Charlie. Her hair was plaited today, something low and rough. Her lips pursed, like she was about to say something that she never does say.

He stared too long. Because she felt it, her eyes darting from the road to him, back again.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ He looked away quickly.

There were children playing on the heaped scrubland that lined the roadway. It had once been a village green, laid in more optimistic times. Now, though, it had been abandoned, its green grass giving in to the rough dirt and the car tyres and used condoms. The children played, like children played anywhere. Only it seemed that the laughter was rougher, bitter-tinged, the shrieks stuffed with barely contained fury. But then that should have come as no surprise. Seemed like the anger was everywhere here, in the overflowing bins, the bottles smashed across the pavement, the tumbledown sofas abandoned in gardens, even in its children. A barely suppressed hatred that this is what their lives looked like, this is what their lot had become.

Was this where the gunman came? When he left Mount Pleasant Hospital, when he vanished through the trees, was this where he came? They had never found Dylan Lowe’s accomplices; had tried, for days and weeks after the shooting. Teams had gone door-to-door as they had searched for the owners of the running footsteps. But there had been nothing, no information. This wasn’t a neighbourhood in which people believed in talking to the police.

Aden tucked his arm back inside the car.

Then there was a motion, a flash of dark through the bright sunlight, and Charlie slammed on the brakes.

Aden’s heart roared, and instead of a full sunlit day, it was a year ago, and the rain was pouring and the figure was carrying a gun.

The figure stopped dead in front of the car, studying them. A little girl, six, seven at the most, with long dark hair, legs black with dirt. She watched them, frowning, as if they were a puzzle she had to solve, then shrugged and stuck two fingers up at them.

Charlie watched as the girl turned and trotted across the road. ‘Well, that was charming.’

‘Yeah.’ It was all Aden could manage. His heart was pounding, his vision narrowed down to nothing more than a tube. This was a mistake. This was a terrible mistake. He should never have done this. What the hell had he been thinking? He could get fired for this. And coming here: why? Why would he ever want to come here, so that he could relive his moment of greatest failure – and with Charlie of all people?

‘So,’ Charlie’s tone was faux-chatty, ‘any news on the hospital? You know, the gunman?’

‘Um . . .’ Aden breathed out slowly, a long count of four. ‘Nothing. We’re patrolling, seems like we’re there all the time. But no sign.’

‘I heard about that woman being chased in the car park. She okay?’

Aden glanced across at her and shrugged. ‘I think so. I mean, we had a team right there, so they got out into the woods pretty quickly, but they found no sign of him.’

Charlie nodded, her forehead contracting into a frown. ‘You think she was making it up?’

Aden looked at her, pulled a face. ‘It was lunchtime. There should have been plenty of witnesses. No one saw a thing. No one but her.’ He shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. I just think it’s weird.’

They were passing a pub now, the kind of place that opened in the early-morning hours, pumping customers full of lager until day turned to night and then day again. A man was standing outside, leaning against the pub door, sucking on a cigarette, his gaze sputtering, hands unsteady.

Charlie gave a brief grimace.

They were coming to the bottom of the hill, a small clutch of houses huddled together at its base. Charlie pursed her lips, flipped on the indicator, easing the car into an empty lay-by. Turned the key, the engine falling silent. ‘That’s the Lowe house,’ Charlie gestured across the road. ‘The one on the far left.’

Aden nodded. Had seen it on the TV, Dylan Lowe’s parents standing on the doorstep, tucked together, faces slick with grief. Beyond the knot of houses, visible now in full daylight, was the alley, a torn poster hanging listlessly from its frame, advertising something that he couldn’t make out.

A few yards ahead: that was where he had stopped the car; that was where Tony threw himself out into the rain.

‘Did you want to get out of the car? Or . . .’

‘Yeah,’ said Aden. ‘Let’s . . . yeah.’