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‘So,’ says Imogen, ‘how have you been sleeping?’

I shrug, pull a face. ‘About the same.’

‘The nightmares?’

I nod, go back to rolling up the hem of my dress.

It took me longer than it should to make the connection. After all, Imogen isn’t a common name. It wasn’t until I was in her waiting room with its lavender-coloured walls, neatly lined wood-backed chairs, its crisp green ficus, that I really made the connection with Dave. I had almost run then. The thought of Dave knowing your deepest and darkest secrets is enough to make anyone run like hell. But, for reasons that I still can’t explain, I didn’t run. I stayed. Maybe it was because there is simply something about her, this narrow woman with the overlarge eyes that seem to lock onto yours, listening to you in a way you have never really been listened to before. Maybe it was the relief of finally allowing my thoughts out. And besides, once I had met her it became unconscionable to me that she would repeat my words to anyone, least of all Dave.

She’s watching me. ‘You said it was the anniversary of your father’s death this week?’

‘Monday.’

‘Monday.’ Imogen nods. A quick note on her pad, fingers pressed white-tight against the biro. Looks back up at me. ‘How are you doing with that?’

My thumbnail has cracked again, the result of so much time in chlorinated water, has split right below the line of skin. I pluck at it, a stinging pain zinging along my thumb. ‘Okay, I guess.’ Am planning on sitting here, enjoying the companionable silence. But without me meaning to, my mouth spills open. ‘I try not to think about it.’

I think instead about yesterday afternoon, what happened before I left the newsroom. I had heard the newsroom door open, my gaze pulled by some kind of sixth sense. Had felt my stomach drop when I saw the narrow outline of Steve Lowe, had braced myself, thinking, ‘Here we go again.’ But he wasn’t looking for me this time. Steve came into the office with a bouncing stride, chin up, so that his lip was curled into an almost sneer. He wasn’t looking at me. Was looking at Dave. Dave glanced around from his computer, attention drawn by the sense of being stared at, all colour draining from his face. For a moment I wondered if he was about to cry. Steve stared at him, a hunter looking through a scope. Then he passed us, and although it seemed there should have been relief, I could see Dave’s face – the knowledge that there was worse to come. Steve Lowe walked straight into Lydia’s office, closed the door behind him. Then it seemed that everyone was watching Dave, because whether they saw it or heard about it – a newsroom is a fermenting pot for gossip – it seemed that everyone knew about Dave going toe-to-toe with Steve Lowe. Trying to work, but in reality watching the clock and watching Dave, who was sinking lower and lower in his chair. Then, after twenty-seven minutes, the door swung open and Steve emerged with that bouncing stride. Smiling.

He had slowed as he reached us. Had looked at Dave, fingers forming the shape of a gun that he pointed at Dave’s head. A soft, whispered ‘Pow!’

‘Do you think that helps?’ Imogen’s voice startles me.

‘What?’

‘You know, not thinking about it. Do you think it helps?’

I pluck at the nail. It’s going to catch on everything now, tugging at threads so that it pulls everything apart. ‘I guess. I mean, it was a long time ago. You can’t spend every day crying over it, can you? You have to just get on with things.’ Then, apropos of nothing, ‘My mother, she says I put my father on a pedestal. That no one is perfect.’

‘Do you think that’s true?’

‘I guess. I mean, you never really know anyone, do you? People – they don’t show you who they really are. They show you what they think you want to see.’

Imogen smiles a little. Another quick note. ‘That’s rather cynical, Charlie.’

I shrug. ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ I nibble at the nail, a sharp pain as it rips, tearing at my skin. ‘I mean, like this girl who was in school with me. Did you hear about it? The woman who died on the M4?’

Imogen nods.

‘Well, we were friends. In school, you know. I knew her well. I mean, it had been a few years, we grew apart – you know how it is. But still, I thought I knew her; the kind of person she was, I mean. But what happened to her, the way she died . . . It doesn’t make sense, just wandering onto the M4 like that. There’s talk that she was drunk, but . . . I don’t know, I just don’t want to think that of her, you know?’

Imogen allows the silence to spool out, puddling around our feet. I can hear the clock ticking, the distant sound of voices. I cup the remnant of my thumbnail in the palm of my hand, feeling it scratch against my skin.

Then Imogen shifts. ‘I think that, to a certain extent, what you said is true. I mean, we all put our best face forward, show others what we want them to see.’

I nod.

‘But, that said, I also think that when you are very close to someone, you can often know precisely who they are.’

I must be looking doubtful. Like I said, I’d be a rubbish poker-player.

‘Don’t you think that’s true? That this is the very nature of close relationships? That we learn who others are – who they really are – and we allow them to see who we are too.’

‘I guess.’ My thoughts flutter, struggling to settle anywhere, a butterfly in a strong breeze. Words form, a sentence that I know I’m not going to say. How the hell would I ever know this? I’ve never been in a relationship long enough for it to happen. I’ve never allowed myself to be in a relationship long enough.

My hand goes to my necklace, a cheap silver thing that I picked up somewhere for a tenner. And I think of Emily’s necklace. Where did it go? How is it that she ended up dead on the side of the road without it? I think of the covered body, the blue flashing lights, the figure of the gunman on CCTV. And it strikes me that I am not working with facts. I am searching for that which I want to find. Because, if I am honest, I want to think that she was murdered. I want to think there is a connection between her death and the gunman at her door. I don’t want to believe that Emily died because she was drunk and stupid, that life can be so wasteful. I don’t want to think good people can be so foolish. Even though I know they can be. That anyone can, given the right set of circumstances.

IT IS RAINING.
The weather has finally broken, great sheets of rain driving into my windscreen. I’m going home. I’m going home because it is my mother’s birthday and it is expected and that is what you do.

I pull up at a red light, the rain washing it out so that it appears to run, bleeding. The
Swansea Times
offices are beside me, lights breaking through the gathering darkness. I look, then look away. I don’t want to see them. Allow my gaze to trickle down to the road, and my eyes arrest on a figure in the doorway. Charlie stands on the front steps. She is squinting through the rain, watching something that I can’t see. Then suddenly she is running, down the front steps, out into the roadway, seems almost like she hasn’t noticed the pouring rain. She runs, and she is heading for something, although I cannot see what it is.

The light turns to green. I pull away.

I ease the car through the built-up streets, filled with quiet houses, families at peace. I know these streets. Grew up in them. Built a den from fallen branches, some discarded plastic sheeting, a cardboard box buckled and warped with the weather, in the park just there. Fell from my bike, a tumble turning over the red-wrapped handlebars, sparking pain down my cheek, my knee ice-cold, blood seeping through the denim, on that road right there.

I pull up outside the house, climb slowly from the car. They are all there, I can see them through the windows, and it seems to me that this is how it has always been: me on the outside, looking in. I see my sisters, Courtney and Leila and Beth. My brother, William, still in his suit, looks like he is fresh from work. Courtney’s kids, all three of them, so loud that the roar of them echoes in the street. Seems impossible that they ever draw breath. I stand there, for long moments, and I ponder changing my mind, just turning and walking away. But they have seen me, are looking my way. So I walk down the drive, let myself in through the front door.

My mother has roasted a joint of beef, the house thunders with the smell of garlic and rosemary. She looks up as I walk in, gives me a smile that lifts me. She is beautiful, my mother. Larger than she should be, rolls of fat where there should be flat skin, but such softness. Her smile can fracture the chaos, feels like a sunbeam in the middle of a storm. And maybe that’s why I came here today. Because there is so much darkness that I desperately need to see the sun.

‘How are you, my love?’ my mother asks.

I open my mouth. I’m not sure what it is that I will say, here in the living room full of sound, but then the moment has passed and someone has pulled my mother away, and I am left standing. The sun vanished behind a cloud.

The table is set with my mother’s good china. There is dinner, roast beef, mashed potatoes, home-made Yorkshire pudding. A glass of rosé to toast the day. My mother raising a glass, a brief moment of silence at the overcrowded table. ‘To your dad. Always with us.’

Leila wiping a tear from her eye, and I feel an urge to roll my eyes, because all I can think of are the screaming rows she had with my father, when he looked at her with her short skirts and low-cut tops, his lip curled in disgust. William purses his lips, and the children look to one another as if they are unsure what comes next. I stare at my plate, the cooling gravy forming patterns of grease. Think of my father with his large frame, larger anger. There are no tears.

Then the moment passes, and is forgot, and there are birthday presents to be opened, the children leaping from sofa to sofa while Courtney texts. Beth has bought my mother a scarf, bright with flowers, lays it around her neck like a lei. I watch as my mother pulls Beth close, kissing her cheek, think how alike they are. The same aquiline nose, same wide hips. It is in William too; he has my mother’s eyes, my father’s frame.

I move mashed potato around my plate, study it like I will find meaning in its patterns. Glance up at Courtney. She and Leila are a matching pair almost. Separated by two years, dense black hair, the same eyes, same lily-white skin. It has always been the same in this house, that there are sets, people who belong together. And then me.

My mother looks around the table, smiles. ‘Well, this is lovely, isn’t it?’

THE POLICE STATION
is quiet, the air thick and heavy. I walk past open doors, offices with empty chairs, computers left humming quietly. It’s lunchtime, and those who can have flocked their way out into the thundering sunshine. I check my visitor pass, adjust the cord so that it sits mid-navel.

Del is seated in the sergeant’s office, little more than a cupboard. The window pushed open, an inch if that – hinges taut, won’t give any further. He has rolled the sleeves of his uniform shirt up, beads of sweat standing proud across his forehead, and for a moment he doesn’t see me, is typing on his keyboard, tongue protruding from between his teeth, fingers moving ponderously, awkward.

‘Del.’

He glances up at me, squinting. ‘Oh God!’

I fold my arms, lean against the doorframe. ‘Now, Del. Be nice.’

‘You’re stalking me. Aren’t you? I’m telling you, my missus is going to be pissed.’ He pushes his chair away from the computer, grinning.

‘Your missus is going to be friggin’ astonished.’

Del laughs. ‘You know, you . . . you’re a real charmer.’

I shrug. ‘That’s what all the teachers at my finishing school said. How are you? How’s Mrs Del? Any sign of her popping?’

Del groaned. ‘Oh, she’s a nightmare. She’s huge, seriously pissed off. I’m telling you, I’m in hell.’

I pull a face. ‘Poor you. You really are the unseen victim.’

‘Right.’ Del shakes his head, then frowns, glances behind me. ‘How the hell did you get in here anyway? Do you actually work here now?’

I grin. ‘What can I say? People like me.’

Del scoffs. ‘No, they don’t. Anyway,’ he gestures to the chair tucked into the corner of the small office, ‘what do you want this time?’

I slip into the chair, crossing my legs in front of me. Suddenly aware that my stomach is churning. ‘Emily.’

Del sighs, leaning forward on his desk. ‘Yeah, that’s shit. Did you hear? Funeral’s a week Friday.’

I nod. ‘I heard. Del, there was something I wanted to ask.’

‘Go on.’

‘There are rumours. People saying that she was drunk.’

Del sighs again. ‘I have no idea how this stuff gets out. I really don’t. Look, there were a few witnesses. The couple in the car that hit her. The other car on the scene. They said she was staggering.’ He shrugs, like it’s just another day’s tragedy. One more person who isn’t who you think they are. Del moves the mouse across the desk, computer screen lighting up. ‘I mean, I’ve got the police report here. It’s tragic. The couple in the car, the one that hit her, they’re just devastated. Say she wandered right out in front of them. They were overtaking another car, so the husband estimates they were doing maybe seventy miles per hour. Poor sod didn’t stand a chance.’

I look at him. ‘What lane were they in?’

He glances up at me, a brief frown, then looks back at the screen. ‘Ah, I don’t know if they . . . no, hang on. Here it is. Centre lane. They were overtaking a car on the inside lane.’

‘So . . . Emily came from the central reservation?’

He looks at me blankly.

‘No, I’m just saying – I thought she was walking along the hard shoulder. But if she had been, she’d have staggered out in front of the car on the inside lane. The one they were overtaking.’

Del looks back at the screen, stares. ‘I guess.’

‘So how did she get there? You know, if she had just wandered onto the M4, then surely she would have been walking along the inside lane. Wouldn’t she?’ I suddenly become aware that I am biting my nails. ‘Unless she came from a car. Unless someone dropped her in the centre of the carriageway.’