Home Truths E-Book

Charity Norman

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 493

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Livia Denby is on trial for attempted murder. The jury have reached a verdict. Two years earlier, Livia was a probation officer in Yorkshire, her husband Scott a teacher. Their children, Heidi and Noah, round out a happy family until the day Scott's brother dies. Grief and guilt leave Scott seeking answers, a search which takes him into the world of conspiracy theories. As his grip on reality slides, he makes a decision which will put the family on a collision course with tragedy. Livia's family has been torn apart, and now her son's life is hanging in the balance. Just how far will she go to save the ones she loves?

Leseprobe

Praise for Remember Me:Winner of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel

‘A beautifully written and gripping story with an emotional twist’ Claire McGowan

‘To write about characters facing devastating, mind-altering health diagnoses and blend these everyday tragedies – all too familiar to some readers – into an elevated suspense novel, while steering clear of mawkishness and self-pity . . . it’s an astounding piece of work’ Ngaio Marsh Award judges

Praise for The Secrets of Strangers:A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick

‘It’s the well-written characters in this fast-paced story that keep you turning the pages’ Good Housekeeping

‘The Secrets of Strangers binds you to its heart-wrenching story, until the tension is almost too much but you have to read on. Masterful, heartbreaking and compelling’ Erin Kinsley

Praise for See You in September:

‘This is a big, gripping and heartbreaking read... I couldn’t put it down’ Daily Mail

‘A riveting, fascinating read. I was absolutely gripped’ Julie Cohen

Praise for The New Woman:

‘This is the author’s fourth book and although I’ve said it before, it’s her best. I can’t wait to see what subject she’ll tackle next’ The Sun

‘Completely brilliant – you won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough’ Bella

Praise for The Son-in-Law:

‘Engrossing’ Woman and Home

Praise for After the Fall:A Richard and Judy Book Club pick

‘A gripping tale that would appeal to fans of Jodi Picoult and Joanna Trollope’ Red

Praise for Freeing Grace:

‘Easy to read, hard to put down, it’ll move you to tears’Easy Living

CHARITY NORMAN was born in Uganda and brought up in successive draughty vicarages in Yorkshire and Birmingham. After several years’ travel she became a barrister, specialising in crime and family law in the northeast of England. Also a mediator and telephone crisis line listener, she’s passionate about the power of communication to slice through the knots. In 2002, realising that her three children had barely met her, she took a break from the law and moved with her family to New Zealand. Her first novel, Freeing Grace, was published in 2010. After the Fall was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice and World Book Night title. The Secrets of Strangers was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club choice for 2020, shortlisted for Best Crime Novel in the Ngaio Marsh Awards for Crime Fiction and for best International Crime Fiction in the Ned Kelly Awards. Remember Me won the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.

Also by Charity Norman

Freeing Grace

After the Fall

The Son-in-Law

The New Woman

See You in September

The Secrets of Strangers

Remember Me

First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2024 by Allen & Unwin.

This paperback edition first published in Great Britain in 2024 by Allen & Unwin, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Charity Norman, 2024

The moral right of Charity Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used in any manner in the learning, training or development of generative artificial intelligence technologies (including but not limited to machine learning models and large language models (LLMs)), whether by data scraping, data mining or use in any way to create or form a part of data sets or in any other way.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 952 4

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 953 1

Printed in Great Britain

Allen & Unwin

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

For Hetta

And for Sebbie, her little black dog

Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

George Orwell, 1984

February 2022

They’re coming back. Single file, sombre, poker-faced. The most powerful people in the world.

They seem burdened by the weight of their verdict. Day after day they’ve sat in their two rows, following every turn of the story—watched the anxious parade of witnesses, winced at exhibits, listened to a cacophony of voices. They’re old hands now. A couple of them cast fleeting glances around the courtroom, but most stare dead ahead as they take their seats for the last time.

People reckon if a jury won’t meet your eye, you’re going down the pan.

The silence screams with tension, thrums with it. The defence barrister pours a glass of water, cracks his knuckles, as though he hasn’t noticed that the jury are just feet away. His opposite number is frowning determinedly at her open laptop. People sitting behind them keep their heads down, pretending to be engrossed in random documents. A uniformed police sergeant slips in through the doors from the lobby, taking a seat in the public gallery between those who loathe the defendant, and those who love her.

The judge is the only one who openly watches the twelve as they find their places. She nods her thanks to the bailiff, who shuts the door behind them. She has warned that there must be calm in this room, whatever happens now. She runs a tight ship.

The victim—sorry, the complainant—isn’t in court to hear the verdict. He turned up for just one morning, gave his evidence from behind a screen and was escorted out by minders immediately afterwards. He’s not been back. By his own account, his life was shattered by what the defendant did to him. He’s a broken man, physically and mentally. He’ll never recover from the coldblooded cruelty of that attack.

His supporters are here, though, craning their necks for a better view of the person in the dock, who represents everything they most hate and fear. On the first day they planned to yell abuse from the public seats, but the judge put paid to that. Behave or leave, she said, and they weren’t going to leave. They’ve watched every second of the trial. They want to make sure justice is done. More of them shiver in the blustery wind outside the building: a small but passionate mob, waving slogan-covered signs. They too have been warned by the judge. And every day she’s reminded the jury: ‘You must decide this case only on the evidence presented to you in this courtroom. Ignore everything else. Ignore everyone else. Ignore what you’ve read on placards, or on social media, or anywhere else at all.’

But how can they possibly tune out the noise? Everyone in the country is an expert on this case. Everyone knows what That Woman did. That Unwomanly Woman. That woman who tortured a man.

The defendant sees everything from the dock. She’s come to know them well, these twelve who hold her future in their hands—or at least to know the people she imagines them to be. The scowling, surly figure in the back row, for instance. Mr Darcy. The handsome boy with the beard and man bun, who always looks as though he’s suppressing laughter, or possibly tears. The motherly woman in the dove-grey hijab; the older one wearing cornflower-blue glasses, who uses a walking stick but moves gracefully, ramrod-straight, head high. The Dancer. Five men, seven women. All ages, all stages. From eyebrow piercings to pearls, dreadlocks to short back and sides. And this common purpose, this civic duty. This power.

Until today, they’ve been mute. Now they will speak, and their words will define the rest of her life.

If a jury won’t meet your eye, you’re going down the pan.

Her thoughts shriek and flutter, a bird in a forest fire. When the clerk asks her to stand, her shaking legs threaten to give way. She grips the rail of the dock, suspended over a yawning abyss.

You’re going down the pan.

Fifteen hellish seconds. The clerk leafs through papers, clearing his throat. ‘Would the foreperson please stand?’

It’s The Dancer. She gets to her feet neatly, without fuss. She’s been taking notes throughout the trial, especially during the summing-up. No surprise that they’ve chosen her.

‘Has the jury reached verdicts upon which you are all agreed?’

‘We have.’

The judge’s pen is poised. The entire room seems to stop breathing.

‘On count one,’ begins the clerk, ‘attempted murder, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’

ONE

August 2019

Livia

It began so beautifully, the day that destroyed us. Soft moorland air billowing our bedroom curtains, Scott singing in the shower while I plumped up my pillows and luxuriated, humming along with his Elvis Presley imitation, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’.

Two sets of feet racing along the floorboards of the landing. Heidi appeared first, copper hair a wild halo around her face, falling almost to her waist. Thirteen today. She wasn’t as sophisticated as her friends, with their crop tops and phone-scrolling and world-weary air. She still thought it was fun to bounce on her parents’ bed, and her smiling eyes looked like crescent moons.

‘Happy birthday!’ I cried, holding out my arms.

‘Thanks, Mum.’

Noah clambered up beside us, still in his dinosaur pyjamas, handing me his greatest treasure.

‘Bernard wants a cuddle.’

‘Good morning, Bernard.’ I pressed the soft bundle against my shoulder: a sloth with a goofy grin, whose charm lay in his relentless state of bliss. According to his label, Bernard was made of one hundred percent recycled plastic bottles. Every school day, before setting out, Noah propped him on the windowsill in the hall—‘to watch for me coming home’.

My bed became a less peaceful place as both children began to use it as a trampoline. Up, down, up, springs creaking, Heidi’s hair flying.

‘Happy birthday to you, squashed tomatoes and stew,’ warbled Noah, wheezing with the effort of jumping and singing. ‘You look like a monkey . . . and you act like one too!’

He was repeating this hilarious punchline when Scott appeared from the bathroom in jeans and a sweatshirt, rubbing his hair with a towel, grinning as he joined in the song. Without missing a beat, Noah launched himself right off the bed and into his arms. Such trust. He was five years old, and never doubted that his father would catch him. Not back then.

Heidi was still bouncing. ‘What time’s our bike ride, Dad?’

‘I reckon . . .’ Scott kissed Noah’s head before setting him down. ‘Let’s say ten thirty. That’ll easily put us in Thorgill by lunchtime.’

‘Promise you don’t have a meeting or a pile of marking or something?’

‘Nope! This is your day. Ten thirty on the dot.’

When asked what she’d like to do on her birthday—a trip to the cinema, tenpin bowling, a sleepover with friends?—Heidi didn’t hesitate: pancakes for the four of us, followed by a bike ride with Scott. They planned to stop for lunch at the tiny pub at Thorgill, a hamlet on the roof of the world.

‘Not that I don’t love you and Noah, Mum,’ Heidi assured me now, sliding an arm around my neck. ‘But it’s a long way and all uphill and you don’t like biking.’

‘I certainly don’t. Noah and I will have a happy morning in the library.’

‘And I always have to share Dad with half of Yorkshire.’

We clattered down our lethally steep staircase. For some reason best known to himself, Noah always hopped the whole way on one foot—thud, thud. Left foot on the way up, right foot on the way down.

The Forge was cramped and very old, as were many houses in Gilderdale. Visitors exclaimed rapturously at the sloping ceilings and wobbly floorboards, but its rooms felt increasingly small as our family grew. The narrow stairwell led through a wooden-plank door, straight into the kitchen. Stone flags, peeling shelves. Previous owners had added an extension, a sitting room adjoining the kitchen. The cottage’s ancient plumbing gurgled like an elephant’s stomach, the roof leaked more every winter. But it was our home, the only home our children had ever known, and we loved it.

Heidi opened birthday cards at the kitchen table while I snuck a glance through my work emails. Even on a weekend there were always more, more, more.

‘From Uncle Nicky,’ said Scott, producing a giant envelope, at least a foot square.

‘Aw, Nicky!’ Heidi slid out a card covered in cartoon kittens— thirteen of them, each with a coloured bow. Playing with balls of wool, washing their paws. Two miniature tigers were engaged in fluffy battle.

‘He read every single birthday card in the shop,’ Scott said with a groan. ‘Hundreds of ’em. We were in there for an hour.’

Heidi picked up Scott’s phone from the dresser. ‘I’ll ring him now. I bet he’s waiting.’

I listened as she chatted to her uncle. Thanks, Nicky! I love my card! Life had dealt my brother-in-law a tough hand: type 1 diabetes along with an intellectual disability. He was getting on for fifty, and middle age had brought anxiety. He seemed to have a new worry every day. Sometimes—when his little dog, Ozzy, had fleas, or his washing machine was broken—he kept Scott talking for hours, fretting.

By the time Heidi’s call was over, Scott had tied a spotty apron over his jeans and was mixing pancakes, giving a running commentary in his ‘French chef’ accent. His hair was still wet, tousled from the shower.

‘’Ere we have zee—how you say?—zee flour? And zee shoogar, and a leedle pinch of baking powder.’

He’d barely begun before his phone rang: that perky Nokia tune.

‘Don’t answer it, Dad,’ begged Heidi. ‘Voicemail is your friend.’

But he did. Of course he did. Scott had time for everyone. He was head of the English department at Barmoors High School, year eleven dean and picked up every stray project along the way—drama club, poetry society, school trips. I could hear the caller’s strident voice from across the kitchen: Jane Jameson, chair of the board and dragon mother of an entitled little blighter called Dylan. Instead of reminding her that she was bothering him in the summer holidays, Scott listened politely, grimacing as he forced down one of his cowpat-coloured superfood shots.

‘Yes . . . no,’ he murmured. ‘Mm. I really understand your concern, Jane, but Hazel’s already done a lot of work on that risk assessment.’

Heidi rolled her eyes at me. ‘See? Half of Yorkshire.’

The green muck in his glass was the latest potion he’d bought from our local holistic retreat. Megan and Marcos Espinoza—nice people, at the wacky end of the alternative health spectrum— guaranteed the potency of their herbal anti-inflammation remedy. Scott, who swore by all their stuff, reckoned it was miraculous. The knee he’d sprained last month became pain-free overnight, apparently. I suspected the placebo effect.

At last, he managed to extricate himself from Janet’s call. He was about to ladle a batch of pancake batter into the frying pan when the jolly ringtone sang out again. Someone from his mum’s care home, letting him know about a minor change in medication.

‘They never stop,’ Heidi whispered. ‘I don’t believe this bike ride is going to happen.’

The first pancake was sizzling when the inevitable happened. That bloody ringtone.

Sighing, Heidi picked up the phone and looked at the screen.

‘It’s Uncle Nicky again. That’s that, then.’

She seemed defeated as she handed the phone to Scott. She and I took over at the stove while he reassured his brother.

‘We’re not going to see Mum today, mate.’ Endlessly patient. ‘You’re quite right: we normally do on Saturday. Yes, and normally we go to Tesco as well. But it’s Heidi’s birthday, remember? You just talked to her. So we’ll do Mum and Tesco tomorrow instead. Look on your calendar, you’ve written it there . . . can you see that? Great! Okay, Nicky. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.’

He ruffled his hair, listening.

‘Who came round? Not again! Don’t talk to those people, they’re scammers. You didn’t give them your credit card details, did you? What company are they from? Okay, I’ll tell them to get lost.’

‘Double-glazing people again,’ Scott huffed, once he’d rung off. ‘They got him to sign a contract this time. He doesn’t even own his home!’

‘Sharks.’ I took Scott’s phone out of his hand, setting it onto vibrate mode and putting it back on the dresser. ‘That’s been three calls in twenty minutes. It’s Saturday, it’s your daughter’s birthday—the rest of the world can manage without you for a while.’

I kissed him. Then I kissed him again, and once again for good measure.

‘Ew,’ said Heidi.

That was such a happy time: pancakes, coffee, presents, and no more Nokia tune. Heidi kindly went into raptures over her present from Noah: a velvet choker with a green butterfly hanging from it. He’d wrapped it all by himself, albeit rather haphazardly. She put it on, said she’d wear it forever. My parents had sent a hardback copy of Anne of Green Gables. Finally Scott winked at me, slipped out and returned wheeling a new bike, far bigger than the old one which Heidi had long outgrown, with a lightweight frame and tyres wide enough to tackle moorland tracks. Our neighbour had let us hide it in his garage for a fortnight.

Heidi seemed overwhelmed, silently touching the smooth red of the handlebars before whirling around to hug us both.

‘Try it out,’ said Scott. ‘We can adjust the seat, or drive down to York and change it, if the size isn’t right for you.’

She was already wobbling her careful way around the table and into the sitting room, navigating Noah’s scooter and chain of toppled dominoes, her crescent-moon eyes gleaming.

‘I can’t believe you got me this. Can I ride it today?’

‘You bet,’ Scott replied, pouring us both more coffee. ‘It’s an outdoor bike, not a kitchen one.’

Everything took longer than we’d planned. It always does, doesn’t it? Half past ten came around, and the cycling party wasn’t ready to leave. Scott turned on the garage lights and lifted his own bike down from the wall, only to discover a puncture.

Heidi was horrified.

‘Dad! We’ll miss the pub. They close their kitchen.’

‘Plenty of time,’ he assured her calmly, flipping his bike upside down. ‘If you scoot inside and fill up our water bottles, I’ll throw on a spare tube.’

Meanwhile, I went to search the car for a lost library book. Noah was lying flat on his stomach by our pond, his long fringe flopping over his face as he fed the goldfish. He was a real Doctor Doolittle, that boy. His fish recognised him. They’d swim right into his cupped hands—something they wouldn’t do with anyone else. Random cats in the street wound around his ankles. When we visited friends with dogs, he always ended up throwing balls for them. He loved all animals, which made it extra tragic that we couldn’t keep pets ourselves because of his severe asthma. Only goldfish, and Bernard the Sloth.

Scott’s mother reckoned he was an old soul.

‘Look at his eyes,’ she whispered, when he was barely old enough to sit up. ‘Grey as smoke, with that dark blue ring. Those long, long lashes. The knowing way he stares at you.’

‘That serious expression on his face right now? Wind.’

She tutted at my levity, reaching out to touch Noah’s bald head. ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you, darling?’

She was a loving mother-in-law, Geraldine, and she hadn’t had it easy: a son with complex health needs, a husband whose heart gave out long before he reached retirement. We were close, but we’d never see eye to eye when it came to karmic reincarnation.

‘He’s just a chubby baby,’ I said. ‘The cutest baby in the world, I’ll grant you, but that’s genetics. He’s the spitting image of Scott at the same age. I’ve seen the photos.’

‘This child has lived many lives, I’m telling you. His spirit has wisdom. His spirit.’

Remembering her words now, I smiled as I watched Noah, in his red shorts and Superman T-shirt and little sandals, talking amiable nonsense to a shoal of fish.

•

Why am I obsessing over the details of that day? Why am I trying so desperately to describe where everyone was, what everyone was doing, at precisely ten forty-four on one particular Saturday morning? I do it all the time. I replay the scene at night, lying alone in the darkness as I dread the light of another day. Because this is the moment that changed everything.

If, if, if.

If I could go back in time.

If I could change just one small thing.

If I could save us.

In my imagination it is exactly ten forty-four. We’re frozen in our various places around the house, the garage, the garden. Two bright-eyed blackbirds pause their hopping and pecking on the lawn. Even the fish stop flitting among Noah’s fingers.

And then we’re in motion again.

•

Noah sat up; the birds took flight into the apple tree. Heidi came dancing outside, a water bottle in each hand, exclaiming at how quickly Scott had mended his tyre. ‘You’re a legend, Dad!’ Father and daughter high-fived.

‘Just gotta grab my phone,’ Scott called, heading indoors.

He returned a couple of minutes later.

‘Can’t find it,’ he said to me. ‘I could have sworn it was on the dresser.’

‘Pockets?’ I suggested. ‘Backpack?’

But it wasn’t in his pockets, or in the backpack he always took cycling. It wasn’t on the kitchen dresser where I’d last seen it, or in the garage, or by the soap in the downstairs toilet. He and I stood in the kitchen while I called his number from my own phone. We listened for the buzz-buzz of its vibration. Nothing.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘My fault for putting it on silent.’

Heidi appeared in the doorway, clutching their bike helmets.

‘No luck? Never mind, Dad. I’ve got mine if we have an emergency.’

Scott hated to be separated from his phone. He worried about Nicky, whose diabetes wasn’t well controlled despite the best efforts of both Scott and the health services. He worried about Noah, whose asthma could flare with terrifying swiftness. He worried about his mum, who’d been struck by dementia and lived in a care home. He always patted his pockets before walking out of the front door, just to check.

But Heidi was hopping up and down. The Thorgill Arms had one small bar with smoke-blackened beams, a log fire in winter. They closed their kitchen early if there were no customers wanting lunch.

‘Sod all phone signal on the moors anyway,’ I reminded him. ‘Might as well leave it behind.’

His gaze ran along the dresser one last time before he accepted defeat.

He and Heidi swung onto their bikes—the whirr of chains, the crunch of wheels on the gravel, Heidi waving to me as she turned off the drive and headed with her dad towards the moorland road, both of them bent over their handlebars.

I caught the first, gentle scent of heather flowers drifting from the moors. Sunlight shimmered on the ripples of our pond, on Noah’s dark blond hair, on the sumptuous foliage of the lime and ash trees along Back Lane, the square tower of Gilderdale Church. I found the missing book under the passenger seat. All seemed well.

But it was already happening. The first domino had already fallen.

If Scott hadn’t needed to fix a puncture, if I hadn’t been looking for a picture book, if Heidi hadn’t been so desperate to get started on that bike ride.

If, if, if.

TWO

Heidi

Dad and I cycled across the moors in all that clean wind and sunshine. To reward ourselves for pedalling up the steepest hill, we stopped to have a drink of water and admire the view. The heather was just starting to bloom, waves of pink and purple stretching away for miles. I could smell it, and the peaty bracken unfurling alongside the dry-stone walls. I swear it’s the most beautiful place in the world.

The Thorgill Arms was still serving lunch. We sat at a picnic table in the garden watching the world go by, with sheep grazing nearby. I took a selfie of us making faces at the camera. Dad didn’t have his phone, so for once it was just him and me. I complained about my friends, Maia and Keren, who’d fallen out and weren’t talking.

‘Literally not speaking,’ I said, as I soaked my Yorkshire pudding in gravy. ‘They both bitch to me about the other one. So that’s awkward.’

Dad agreed that it must be. ‘Communication is vital,’ he said. ‘Never stop talking to people, no matter what they do.’

‘Have you ever stopped talking to anyone?’

‘I’ve tried. Can’t shut up long enough.’

The ride home was mainly downhill, which was lots of fun. But as we came freewheeling along Back Lane, I spotted Anthony’s grey car parked outside our house. My heart sank into my trainers. Now I’d have to share Dad again.

Imagine a lumbering bear from Teesside, with a try-hard American accent. That’s Anthony Tait. He and Dad were flatmates at university, but that was years ago; they’d only met up again recently. He and Mum appeared from the house while we were pushing our bikes into the garage. She looked delicate beside him, wearing the ankle-length skirt and baggy cardigan she’d thrown on that morning, long hair all twisted up and spraying out of a butterfly clip on the back of her head—ginger, the same colour as mine, though she insisted on calling it ‘copper’.

But something had changed. There was something broken about her. She was gripping her elbows, hugging herself.

‘Tait! Look what the cat dragged in!’ cried Dad, as he lifted his bike onto its holder in the garage.

‘I’ve been trying to call you on Heidi’s phone,’ said Mum. ‘No signal.’

Dad turned away from the bike, dusting off his hands, smiling. In that second, he was still a happy person. ‘Sorry! Something important?’

Then he took a look at Mum’s face, and his smile faded. It was only about four o’clock, on a bright and sunny afternoon. But I felt the world get darker. I did. The light dimmed.

‘Nicky,’ she whispered.

‘What about him?’ Dad looked from her to Anthony. ‘Hypo?’

Neither answered.

Dad was already moving towards his car. ‘Where is he? Home or hospital?’

‘They found him unconscious in his garden,’ said Mum. ‘A courier delivering a parcel. Someone called an ambulance and they took him to York, but . . .’ She laid her hands on Dad’s arm, resting her forehead against his shoulder.

Dad’s whole body sagged, as though someone had hit him over the head with a hammer. A weird quietness filled the garage. It felt like a bomb about to go off. I didn’t know sadness could sound like that: complete silence, on the verge of an explosion.

‘No,’ he said, with a hopeful, twisted smile. ‘Can’t be. They’ve got the wrong person. I spoke to him this morning. So did Heidi— didn’t you?’

‘The police were here,’ said Mum.

‘I talked to him.’ Dad sounded desperate now. ‘He was fine.’

Anxious, kind Uncle Nicky. He’d got up this morning without any idea of what was coming. I imagined him brushing his teeth, maybe humming—he had a lovely mellow singing voice, like Dad. It took him a long time to dress himself but he always looked smart. I’d phoned him about my birthday card and we had a cheerful chat. He called Dad about the double-glazing people. But then he must have slid into one of those scary episodes in which he was like another person. Confused and strange, sometimes angry. He only needed a cup of sweet tea or a glucose tablet.

He only needed . . .

That was when I understood what I’d done. It hit me full in the stomach, like a football kicked by a giant, knocking the air out of me.

‘C’mon, man,’ said Anthony, dropping his big hand onto Dad’s shoulder. ‘Let’s get you a drink.’

I trailed after them as they trooped inside. Dad sat bolt upright at the kitchen table. He didn’t want any alcohol, so Anthony put the kettle on. Mum went to check on Noah who was watching telly in the sitting room. I heard her trying to be breezy, pretending everything was normal. ‘Okay, Captain Noah? What are you watching?’

I was curled up in the rocking chair in the corner of the kitchen, by the low windowsill with its trailing pot plants. I felt as though I’d never breathe again. My birthday cards were propped up along the sill. The biggest and brightest by far was Nicky’s kittens. He’d written inside, in his tidy handwriting: Happy 13th Birthday to my favourite niece! Nicky and Ozzy XOXO

Mum reappeared in the archway, holding up Dad’s phone in its black case. ‘Look what Noah found,’ she said.

Dad shrugged as if he didn’t care, but my heart broke into a headlong gallop. I knew exactly where Noah had found that phone.

‘Way down the back of the armchair,’ added Mum. ‘He was making a fort with the cushions. God knows how it ended up down there. Maybe it fell out of your pocket when you were doing up your cycling shoes.’

She put it on the table and began to rub Dad’s back, talking about practical things. The police had given her a number to call; they wanted Dad to go to the hospital to identify Nicky’s body.

Dad was sighing, reaching for his phone. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I watched in despair as he swiped the screen.

‘Missed calls,’ he said. ‘Some from you, when we couldn’t find the phone. Five from Pam at the Malt Shovel. She’ll have seen the ambulance in the road. And . . .’ He stared at the screen. ‘Nicky. Nicky tried to ring at ten forty-four. He’s left me a voicemail.’

The football whacked into my stomach again, and this time I doubled up in the rocking chair.

Dad was tapping the screen frantically, navigating through to voicemail. He turned on speakerphone.

‘You have one new message. To listen, press one.’

We all leaned closer. Then Nicky spoke to us.

‘Hi, Scott? You there, Scott?’

It was obvious he wasn’t well. His voice sounded flat, like he was stunned. I’d seen him in this kind of a state.

‘Scott? Um, I’ve been out in the garden, I can’t get back in. Can’t get my door open. You there, Scott?’

He began breathing heavily, muttering to himself.

‘You there, Scott? Come on, say something!’

Anger now. I loved my uncle. He could be a massive fusspot, but he was never angry—except when his blood sugar dropped too low.

A series of loud thuds, which must be Nicky trying to get back into his house, maybe hitting or kicking his front door. More muttering. Then—and this was the worst thing—we heard long, high-pitched cries.

‘I’ve lost my cat. Cat’s run away. Come and help me. Scott? You there, Scott? I’ve lost my cat.’

For at least a minute, the four of us listened to the terrible sound of Nicky crying like a little boy. When he spoke again, he could hardly get the words out.

‘Please, Scott? Please?’

He kept on trying to talk, but after that his words slurred into one another and made no sense. Finally he drifted into silence.

Dad pressed the palm of his hand over the phone, as though to shush a crying child, or perhaps a dying brother.

‘He doesn’t have a cat,’ said Mum.

‘Ten forty-four,’ Dad whispered. ‘We were still here at ten forty-four. I’d have driven straight over. I should never have gone out without my phone. Why didn’t I . . . why didn’t I . . .’

And then he made a noise, a cross between a yell and a wail. He didn’t even sound like a human being, let alone my cheerful dad. People talk about someone being ‘a broken man’; now I knew what that meant.

I rushed up the stairs to my bedroom, where I jammed a pillow over my head. The tears made it wet. I felt as though sadness was ripping my heart out of my body.

Please, Scott? Please?

While Dad and I cycled on the moors, poor Nicky was falling over in his garden. While we were taking our selfie and eating Yorkshire pudding among the hollyhocks and bumble bees, he was in an ambulance with lights and sirens. And at some moment on this sunshiny day, Uncle Nicky had left us forever.

Mum came to find me. She took the pillow off my head and sat on the bed, stroking my hair.

‘It’s so stupid,’ I moaned. ‘All he needed was a cup of sweet tea.’

‘I know what you mean. It does seem senseless.’

But she didn’t know what I meant. And she must never find out.

THREE

Livia

I was in a family room at the hospital when my mother rang. Scott had been led away somewhere to identify Nicky’s body. He’d wanted to go alone.

‘I’ve just phoned Heidi to wish her many happy returns,’ said Mum, ‘and she told me the awful news. Poor child! For the rest of her life, her birthday will have a double meaning.’

‘We’re all in shock. We just can’t believe it.’

‘Where’s his little dog?’

‘The landlady at the Malt Shovel has taken him for now.’

We talked for a time, going over and over what had happened.

‘Heidi and Scott both spoke to him this morning,’ I said. ‘Maybe he gave himself too much insulin? I used to wonder whether it was safe for him to manage that by himself. Maybe he’s not been eating properly. Maybe he knew he was in trouble but couldn’t get to food because he was shut outside. Maybe he was never going to have a long life.’ On I went, maybe after maybe.

‘Dear Lord,’ sighed Mum. ‘That lovely man.’

I ended the call as the door to the family room opened, and Scott stumbled in.

‘It’s Nicky,’ he said, as if there’d been any doubt.

He was with a woman who introduced herself as Emma, one of the doctors—youngish, medical scrubs, rubber clogs on her feet. It was she who met the ambulance when Nicky arrived, she who pronounced him dead at twenty past one that afternoon.

Scott sat on the sofa, holding his head in his hands as Emma answered our questions. There would be an autopsy, she explained, but all the signs were that Nicky’s death was the result of hypoglycaemia. He arrested in the ambulance.

‘Would he have been aware?’ I asked. ‘Did he suffer?’

‘Not at the end. Of course, we don’t know for sure what level of awareness people have, but he was unresponsive when the ambulance crew arrived. His systems would already have been shutting down.’

‘Was everything possible done for him?’ asked Scott.

‘Everything.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘But it was too late.’

•

The sun had set, leaving sullen fire along the western horizon. Scott seemed absent as I turned out of the car park, the shadows of street lighting flowing in a silent waterfall down his face. I glanced at him from time to time, but I couldn’t begin to reach him.

Once we’d crossed over the York ring road, he dragged his phone out of his pocket.

‘I keep expecting him to call,’ he murmured, looking at the screen. ‘Drove us nuts, didn’t he, phoning all the time? Huh. I’d give my right arm to have him ring me now. C’mon, Nicky. C’mon.’

Scott and I were thirty-odd when we met, weekend guests of mutual friends. Stephen and Belinda were blatant matchmakers and they hit the jackpot with us. I felt irresistibly drawn to this teacher called Scott Denby, with smoke-grey eyes and a hint of a Yorkshire accent, charmed by his combination of physical confidence and slight social awkwardness. Our hosts’ tiny children hurled themselves at him; he’d stagger along with a giggling child holding on to each leg. And he was terrific at reading aloud, throwing himself into all the voices without a shred of self-consciousness. Even the cat seemed to single him out for smooches.

He and I sloped off for long walks together on that first weekend. We talked, and talked, and talked some more, putting the world to rights through the hay-scented summer evenings, knocking back whisky and listening to jazz long after our hosts had turned in. He spent the second night in my bedroom. By the time I dropped him at the station on the Sunday evening, we both sensed that our lives might be about to change significantly.

I phoned him the following morning.

‘I’ve got two tickets for The Mousetrap on Saturday,’ I said, ‘and a friend has just cried off.’

The first part of this statement was true; the second was a shameless lie. But here we were, flirting over pre-theatre drinks in a West End bar: a probation officer and an English teacher, both of us on the rebound.

‘There’s something you need to know about me,’ he said.

He looked so serious that I leaned closer, preparing myself for a confession of heroin addiction or bigamy or some scandalous sexual proclivity. Instead, he began to describe his older sibling.

‘Nicky’s a wonderful brother,’ he insisted. ‘He understands people. He understands me. It’s just that he needs support with day-to-day things, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to live independently.’

‘I see,’ I said. But I didn’t. I really didn’t.

Scott turned over an imaginary poker hand.

‘Cards on the table. The reason I went back to live in North Yorkshire, work there, and plan to stay there for the foreseeable, is because of Nicky. He can’t handle change. He’s got his little rented cottage, the locals all know him. Mum drops by every day, but she’s not so well herself now. Whatever happens, whoever else is in my life, Nicky will be a priority.’

‘So, applicants for the job of soulmate are buying two guys for the price of one?’

‘That’s about it.’

I downed the last of my drink, thinking about what all this might mean in practice. I was impressed by his devotion to his brother; not so sure about being tied to one part of the country.

‘My mum is a firm believer in soulmates,’ added Scott, smiling affectionately. ‘And reincarnation. Dad only made it to sixty. She thinks he’ll be reborn one day and so will she, and they’ll be together again.’

‘Maybe they will.’

‘Hope so.’

I caught myself thinking that his eyes really were extraordinary. Battleship grey, with startling indigo rings around the iris.

Get a grip, I scolded myself. Stop swooning over a pretty face.

‘She’d approve of you,’ he said.

‘Me? Why?’

‘Because you’re a Gemini and I’m Aquarius and we met at the summer solstice. That makes us a dream team.’

‘Nice to know that!’ I laughed, though I wasn’t sure he was joking. ‘You’re not into astrology, are you, Scott? And horoscopes, and fortune-telling? Because—cards on the table—I’m definitely not.’

‘No! No. But I mean . . .’ He was fidgeting, tapping his glass with a teaspoon. ‘You never know, do you?’

‘Yes, you do. It’s pseudo-science.’

‘I try to keep an open mind. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’

‘The stars of the zodiac aren’t even on the same plane,’ I protested. ‘They’re hundreds of light years apart. Put five thousand random dots in the sky and people are bound to join them up, bound to imagine patterns and gods and whole mythologies. That’s what the human mind does: it looks for patterns. Always has, always will. It’s in our psyche.’

Scott shrugged, still tapping his glass. ‘It’s a nice idea, though, isn’t it?’ He looked up at the ceiling of the pub, as though the night sky were scattered across it. ‘That there’s some kind of guidance up there. That it isn’t just random chaos.’

‘A celestial road map?’

‘Any kind of road map.’

I couldn’t help but smile. Each to their own, I thought. And there was something arresting in his honesty.

‘Was it through random chaos that we met last weekend?’ he asked. ‘Or was it all part of a plan?’

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that our getting together jolly well was part of a plan—Belinda and Stephen’s plan. There was nothing random about it; our friends had set us up, laying on candles and booze and tinkling jazz.

But I didn’t want to spoil the moment, so I leaned across to kiss him. We left the bar and strolled in blissful harmony, our arms around one another and our steps in sync, through gilded evening sunshine to St Martin’s Theatre.

The Mousetrap. Scott guessed whodunnit before the last act, but I didn’t see it coming at all.

And now here we were—a marriage, a mortgage and two kids later. Still in harmony. Stephen and Belinda, meanwhile, were messily divorced and had drifted out of our lives.

But Nicky had died today. We’d failed him.

I was concentrating on the road. It was narrow just here, and unlit, and some jerk in a van was driving about two feet behind us with their headlights on full. When Nicky’s voice came blasting through the car’s speaker, I practically swerved into the ditch.

‘Hi, Scott? You there, Scott?’

I pulled into a gateway and slammed on the brakes, letting the aggressive van driver roar past.

‘For goodness’ sake!’ I protested. ‘Not again. Not now.’

Scott often bluetoothed his phone to the speaker, playing music or talking books for the children. It connected automatically. Now it amplified Nicky’s voice, made every breath as painful as if this man we loved was dying on the back seat of our car. I already knew the ending of the story. I pictured him confused, trying to get into his house. I saw him reaching for his phone, his lifeline, calling his brother and waiting in vain for an answer.

We sat in our car in the darkness and cried, all the way through to Nicky’s final words.

‘Please, Scott? Please?’

Neither of us moved. Winded, wordless. The dashboard was a faint outline in the glow of Scott’s phone.

‘You didn’t know,’ I said at last. ‘You couldn’t be available for him every second of every day.’

‘I could have been there for him this time.’

I started the engine again, pulled out onto the empty road. We had to get home. We’d left a pair of very upset children with Anthony, and that was a big ask. Noah might have an asthma attack. Stress tended to trigger them.

As the car gathered speed, Scott put his earbuds back in.

‘Don’t listen to him again,’ I begged. ‘Delete that message. I know it’s your last link with Nicky, but it’s unbearable.’

‘I owe it to him to listen.’

I gave up. Perhaps it didn’t matter. He might delete the message from his phone, but he’d never be able to wipe it from his memory. Neither would I.

FOUR

Scott

He’d lived ten doors down from this church. Less than two weeks ago, he lay dying in a pile of leaves, within spitting distance of where I stood right now. I knew the squeak of his gate, the loose bricks on his garden path, the blue paint of the front door. He’d light up when I walked in, greeting me with the same joke every single time: Scotty! Beam me up, Scotty!

Anthony kept me company while we waited for the hearse. I’d rather have been alone, but it was kind of him.

The thing is, when a person dies, you can’t hibernate. You’re hurled into a storm of bureaucracy and organisation, and everything has to be done quickly. Closing accounts, cancelling benefits, talking to the solicitor. Emptying a lifelong home, with all its treasures and echoes and shadows. The toothbrush on his basin, the clothes that smelled of him, the half-eaten pie in his fridge, the newspaper open on the table, the crossword book with his handwriting. Do I bin the scarf he always wore, the photos by his bed, his I Love Ozzy mug? Ferrying clothes and bric-a-brac to the Salvation Army shop. Organising a funeral, the final chance to celebrate a man who lived almost fifty years and meant the world to me. Erasing a human existence. All in a few days.

Anthony got it. He couldn’t do enough for us. He was growing a fledgling business, but again and again he made the thirty-mile drive south from his flat in Guisborough, while Livia was heading in the opposite direction towards the Probation Service office in Middlesbrough. And here he was again, on the worst day of all, right beside me.

Yorkshire was wilting in a heat wave. I regretted my dark suit. Anthony tied back his mane of hair and took off his jacket. Livia, Heidi and my mother had already gone into the church, Livia pushing Mum’s wheelchair. Noah was at a friend’s house for the afternoon. I envied him. I’d much rather be splashing in a giant paddling pool.

I greeted well-wishers through a fog of unreality. Random figures drifted up to me through an underwater world, like in a dream. The district nurse who’d made such a difference to Nicky. Childminder Chloë, who’d been in our lives since Heidi was a toddler—a grandmother herself now, opinionated but kind. A group from Nicky’s day centre, piling out of their van. Regulars at the Malt Shovel. Neighbours. They all told me how they valued their chats with Nicky, missed the familiar sight of him and Ozzy in his garden. My brother made the world a better place and he should still be in it.

Pam crossed the road from the Malt Shovel with Ozzy at her side. We couldn’t adopt him because of Noah’s asthma, so she’d offered to take him in. The dog’s tail was down, his steps slow. I knelt to stroke his ears, his glossy black head.

‘He’s pining for his dad,’ said Pam.

‘A lost phone, for God’s sake,’ I muttered to Anthony, once Pam and Ozzy had moved on. ‘A lost phone. Why?’

My friend shook his head, laying his hand on my shoulder. Seconds later I found myself wrapped in the arms of the Espinozas, owners of Rosedale Retreat, a health spa on the moors. Everyone liked Megan and Marcos. They were in their sixties, successful but community-minded, their annual New Year’s bonfire party a local fixture. They kept an impressive herb garden from which they made their own products—they’d once shown me round it. Livia was sceptical, but I wasn’t. Not at all. They had a wealth of knowledge, and their remedies worked.

I introduced them to Anthony, who was immediately included in their hugs.

‘Nicky was a beautiful, beautiful soul,’ said Megan. ‘It’s always the angels we lose.’

Marcos seemed quite agitated, unusual for him. ‘He could have been cured. This should never have happened. He should have lived a long, healthy life.’

‘It’s wicked,’ added Megan. ‘Wicked.’

I was taken aback. ‘You mean his diabetes could have been cured?’

‘We wish we’d talked with you about it before now,’ said Marcus. ‘There’s a lot behind all this. We’re only just learning ourselves.’ He patted my arm. ‘I’m sorry—now’s not the time.’

Megan pressed a brown paper bag into my hand.

‘Use it as you would tea. Every day. Don’t let them give you sleeping pills or antidepressants.’

The bag was labelled Loss Plants, for Healing and Grieving. I thanked Megan as I tucked it into my pocket.

‘I hope I haven’t just received Class A drugs,’ I said to Anthony, as we watched the Espinozas wander off through the graveyard hand in hand.

We both chuckled. It’s what we do, isn’t it? We laugh. We make weak jokes. We pretend the world is still bright.

•

I was five the first time I first witnessed one of Nicky’s episodes— the same age as Noah was now. Nicky would have been about ten.

We were on our way to Coniston Water in the Lake District. We used to go every summer, staying in the same static caravan in a holiday park. It was still dark when we left home, and our parents had promised us breakfast at the Happy Eater on the way. Dad was driving, towing what he called ‘the other love of my life’, an eighteen-foot trailer sailer named Geraldine in honour of Mum. I have a vivid memory of his ears under his tartan flat cap—his holiday hat—my trainers scuffing the back of his seat.

The sun was up when Mum turned around, peering at Nicky. You okay? D’you want a biscuit? . . . Nicky? I remember him screaming, I can’t see! I can’t see! and Dad swerving onto the hard shoulder, Mum sprinting around to yank open my brother’s door. They gave him jam on a spoon straight out of the jar, and the bottle of Lucozade they always kept handy.

The next thing I remembered was sitting cross-legged on a bed in a hospital A&E department. Apparently I sulked because we hadn’t gone to the Happy Eater. I must have been a selfish wee tyke.

We made it to the Lakes in the end. Dad took a whole roll of holiday snaps, which ended up in an album: Coniston, 1980. Mum and Nicky shelling peas outside our caravan; Dad looking ecstatic as he hoisted Geraldine’s sails; Nicky and I in midair, holding hands, as we leaped off the bow into the lake.

I had only the haziest memories of the holiday itself. What I did remember—much too vividly—was the suffocating terror that filled the car that day. I inhaled the fear. I never forgot it.

All Nicky needed was a spoonful of jam. All Nicky needed was for me to answer my phone.

All I needed was to understand why it happened.

•

The black car was gliding down the village street, sunlight reflecting off its gleaming surfaces. Anthony and I stood back as it pulled in between the traffic cones at the kerb. And there was the coffin, with its spray of mauve heather flowers.

The funeral director shook my hand before opening the back of his hearse. The man was a model of professional mourning: solemn but competent, like a profoundly depressed sergeant major. He marshalled us pallbearers—Anthony, two men from the day centre, a couple of friends from the village and me—and paced ahead of us in his black top hat as we carried Nicky into the church. Ozzy trailed along behind. He didn’t need to be on a lead. I swear that little dog knew we were bearing his master.

For one of the few times in his life, my brother was the main event. Nobody was patronising him, he wasn’t a problem or a patient. Death gave Nicky a new dignity.

‘We have come here today,’ said the vicar, ‘to remember our brother Nicholas.’

I’d finished writing my tribute at four o’clock that morning. I’m an English teacher, for crying out loud; I ought to have been able to think of something erudite and poetic to say. But it was impossible to condense a whole person into four minutes. Nicky had been there all my life—literally all my life. I had photos of six-year-old Nicky making me giggle with his funny faces, as I sat grinning toothlessly in my baby chair. On pocket money days, he bought chocolate buttons which we ate in our den at the bottom of the garden. He sat beside me on the school bus, trying to help me with my very first homework, though by the time I was eight it was beyond him. He rejoiced when my children were born, sobbed with me when our dad was taken from us. He was my oldest, closest friend. And now I was expected to sum him up in a few words.

‘Nicky was my best man, here, in this very church. I can see him now, sitting beside me in the front pew: grey silk ties, carnations in our buttonholes. My carnation came askew but he put it right for me. Thank you, Nicky. When the organ stopped playing and everyone fell silent, I knew Livia had arrived. That’s when Nicky nudged me and said loudly, If you’re gonna beam up, Scotty, now would be a good time!’

A ripple of laughter among the mourners. Same church. Same time of day, same time of year. And Nicky was wearing the same suit.

I talked about the chocolate buttons, the den in the garden, the easy friendship Nicky offered to everyone he met. I described how I gradually began to notice he was different from other kids his age. But by different I didn’t mean that he couldn’t keep up with their conversations. I meant he was kinder, wiser, less of a show-off.

‘Sometimes, Nicky,’ I said, reaching out to touch the coffin, ‘you needed my help. But far more often I needed your wisdom. Sometimes I worried about having to look after you my whole life, but more often I worried about how I’d ever manage without you. I relied on you. You relied on me too, and I’m so infinitely sorry that . . .’

Empty words. I could see Mum in her wheelchair, tears glinting on her creased cheeks. As the organ struck up for a hymn, I crouched beside the coffin on its trestles. I laid my palms on the polished wood, my face on it. I didn’t care if I looked unhinged; Nicky was inches away, in his best man suit.

You there, Scott?

You there, Scott?

‘I’m always here,’ I used to promise him. ‘I might be busy, I might be teaching or in a meeting—it doesn’t matter. Leave a message if I don’t answer. I will ring you back straight away. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Promise?’

Eyes wide, he nodded. ‘Promise.’

Come and help me. Scott? You there, Scott?

He kept his promise. I didn’t keep mine. All he needed was a cup of sweet tea. All he needed was for me to do my bloody job. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Anthony and the other pallbearers had joined me. I was carrying my brother out of church. Tomorrow the sun would rise on a world without him in it.

Livia

Ozzy lay by Nicky’s empty chair in the Malt Shovel, his nose between his front paws. Heidi sat beside him on the floor and tried to cuddle him, but the most he could manage was a despondent wave of his tail. The sight of that sad little dog undid me. He was our last link with Nicky.

I’d been back at work that week. We were chronically understaffed at the Probation Service, never enough hours in the day, but Scott had somehow managed the bleak practicalities on his own. I’d suggested booking a weekend getaway for all of us after the funeral. Maybe an Airbnb on the Northumberland coast.

The pub was airless. People drooped in the heat, fanning themselves with their funeral service sheets. Some drank too much. Scott drank far too much, but everyone understood, and Anthony—his faithful bodyguard—kept plying him with sandwiches. It’s never the people you expect, is it? The ones who have your back when the chips are down. Anthony was a mansplainer, the sort who tells a female probationer officer all about how the criminal justice system works, and the Californian twang didn’t quite ring true. But the man had a heart of gold. He’d been a godsend.

I’d noticed a couple sitting at the back of the church and assumed they were former pupils of Scott’s, but afterwards, in the Malt Shovel, Anthony turned up with them in tow. They were both tall and lanky, wearing dark clothes. Maybe still in their teens. They looked embarrassed.

‘Scott, I know you’ll want to meet Lawrence,’ said Anthony. ‘He’s the courier. And this is Sophie.’

It took me a second. The courier. Of course. The police had told us about this young hero, and we’d asked them to pass on our thanks. He’d heard a dog barking and looked over the hedge to see Ozzy trotting in anxious circles around the body of a man half buried in a pile of leaves. Poor Nicky must have flailed about, because the autopsy found leaf litter in his airways.

‘Sorry to intrude, Mr and Mrs Denby,’ Lawrence said. ‘Sophie and I just wanted to pay our respects to Nicholas.’

Scott reached out to shake Lawrence’s hand, clasping it in both of his.

‘You called the ambulance. You put your own jacket over him. You held his hand. Thank you. Thank you.’

Lawrence, blushing, bent to pat Ozzy. ‘Wish I could have done more,’ he said gruffly.

Sophie had jet-black hair, a gold stud in her nose. ‘We were just telling your friend,’ she said, with a glance at Anthony, ‘that they sent the ambulance from Thirsk! God knows why, when Malton’s so much closer. Lawrence reckons it took forty-five minutes.’

‘I wasn’t timing it though,’ said Lawrence.

‘And you felt they weren’t great when they did turn up,’ prompted Anthony.

Lawrence shrugged unhappily. ‘They just didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. The landlady—Pam—she told them he’s diabetic, and they saw his special bracelet, but they didn’t seem to get it. He was still alive when they arrived, still breathing. I honestly thought he was going to be okay. To my mind they faffed about. I think they’d lost him by the time they got him in the ambulance.’

Scott had turned pale. ‘Weren’t they trying to save him?’

It was time to shut this speculation down. Finding Nicky had obviously been a dramatic and disturbing experience for this very young man. He and Sophie must have talked about it endlessly.

People naturally look for someone to blame.

‘I’m sure they did everything they could,’ I said firmly. ‘And maybe the wait felt like longer than it really was.’