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He looks down, studies his phone – the one that never, ever seems to leave his fingers – and I turn back towards the computer, carefully placing the pen down. ‘Nah. Too much coffee.’

I gave up on sleep, some time around four. Padded down the hall to the cupboard, the one that is packed so tight with junk that I avoid opening the door, afraid that if it were to escape I’d never get it back in again. The cardboard box was hidden behind the mop and the Hoover, providing an ad hoc bookshelf for those books that I’ve already read and know deep down I’ll never read again. Written on the side in big red letters:
Charlotte: school
. My mother is one of the few people who ever calls me Charlotte. I have my suspicions that she only does it because she knows I hate it.

I pulled the box free, sinking down onto the carpeted hallway floor in my fleece pyjamas. It was a mishmash – sixteen years of education crammed into one cardboard box. My comprehensive school yearbook was at the bottom. Red faux-leather.

I flicked through. A travesty of Nineties hair, inexperienced make-up. Was looking for Emily, but couldn’t avoid myself. Seemed like wherever she was, I was; Emily’s tight fawn curls merging with mine, looser, the colour of cocoa, my narrow face reaching to her shoulder, awkward smiles. We hadn’t moved in the same circles, not really. Her family were devout Christian, went to church three times a week. She sang in the choir, attended Bible studies. Me, not so much. She moved through the school, ignoring the catcalls, the whispers that inevitably seemed to follow. And yet somehow we had fitted together, two halves of strangely different coins. Until my father died and my life tumbled upside down.

‘You’re going to see the parents?’ Dave leans forward, elbows on the desk. There is a small ochre stain on his collar, sitting just to the left of a pale-blue check. Looks like blood. There is something oddly unsettling about the image of Dave shaving. I somehow find myself picturing him standing at a bathroom mirror, fossil-ribs protruding above boxer shorts. I look away.

‘Yeah.’

He’s watching me, like he’s waiting for me to ask him to come along. But I won’t. I need them to talk to me, and there’s just something about Dave, something that tends to make people clam up.

I had put the story – for that was what it would dissolve down to, when push came to shove – forward at the morning meeting. In amongst the jabber of county fayres and stolen cars, I offered Emily up. ‘She was found dead on the M4. She was wearing going-out clothes, high heels, no coat. They’re not sure how she got there.’

Lydia, my editor had frowned. ‘Sounds like she was drunk.’

You could feel the interest ebbing away, people looking down at their own notepads, rehearsing their own pitches, while Emily vanished, just another casualty of a too-heavy night. My hand began to shake. I sat on my fingers to hide it. ‘I knew her from school. She was a nice girl. church-going.’ There was a wobble in my voice, and I fought back a flush of irritation with myself and my own weakness. Because you can’t do that; go into an editorial meeting and cry, and say you want to cover this story because, for a while at least, the victim was your friend and because you let her down, so now you owe her, and, even though you haven’t seen her in years and years, you just need to make the pieces fit. You can’t tell your editor that the reason it’s this story, and not some other, is that you just can’t live with the idea of the world believing that this is who she is. Some skank in heels who drank too much and meandered into motorway traffic. Just one more death put down to idiocy and booze. But you can’t say any of that. Because it is, after all, about the story.

Lydia had shrugged, bulbed shoulders heaving. ‘People change.’ Her fingers were dancing on her notepad, long manicured nails that led into sausage-round fingers. Her toe tapping on the floor. Looking at me, but seemed like she was struggling to keep her attention there, her gaze pulling itself back towards her office. She’s put weight on, was straining at her size twenty-four blouse, something that generally means she’s worried about something. ‘Sounds like she rebelled. Now, what about this whole “gunman at hospital” thing? What do you have for me on that?’

I had leaned forward, my notepad digging into my ribs. ‘Well . . .’ Injecting faux-enthusiasm, a little suspense, into my voice. ‘Now I also have an interesting little link there. The night before Emily Wilson died, she called the police. She was the one who reported the man with the gun. So what I’m thinking is: I can cover both stories at once. You know, maybe just go and see her parents, dig a little. See if I can find an angle the other papers won’t have.’

Lydia had studied me for a moment, teeth picking at her lower lip. And I know what she is thinking: that I am good at my job. That sounds arrogant, doesn’t it? But I don’t mean it that way. I just . . . I seem to know the words to say, what will draw the story out: from victims, from the police, sometimes from the perpetrators themselves. In my four years as crime reporter I have provided more front-page stories than any other reporter here. And I can see all this, running through her brain.

Then she sighed. Throwing me a bone. ‘Fine. Look, go and see the parents. See if there’s anything there with the gunman. If not, write up a little something on the tragedy, y’know: nice girl, so young, et cetera. Okay, what about this mugging on Queen Street? What have you got on that?’

I glance at my watch. I should make a move, go and see Emily’s parents. I don’t need to look them up – I know where they live. Four doors down from our old family home. I stop for a minute, scrunch my face up, thinking. I’d be terrible at poker. Should I ring them first? Wouldn’t normally, but then this isn’t normal, not really. I can feel Dave watching me, his eyes burning into the side of my face. ‘So . . .’ I’m not really interested in chatting, but quite frankly it’s starting to get awkward, so I cast around for conversation. ‘How’s Imogen doing?’

He shrugs, fingers fumbling at his phone. ‘’kay. Busy in work.’

I don’t bite – wonder if he knows, if Imogen has told him. But then surely she wouldn’t? Psychologists aren’t supposed to do things like that. Can feel my face flush, busy myself typing the Wilsons’ address into the telephone directory, trying not to let my mind run away with me. Imogen wouldn’t do that.

‘Well, tell her I said Hi.’ I’m studying the computer screen, still not looking at him.

‘Yeah, sure. Oh Jesus!’

‘What?’ My heartbeat steps up a pace, because for a second I think he knows something. But when I look up he isn’t even looking at me, has turned his chair towards the door, watching the figure in the doorway. I suppress a groan, look back down, hope like hell that Steve Lowe hasn’t seen me.

‘Your boyfriend’s back.’

I can hear the glee in Dave’s voice, kind of want to slap him. I keep studying the screen, willing Steve to keep walking right by my desk, on towards Lydia’s office. Please God, let him not be my problem, not today. I hear his footsteps, a stalking, bouncing step, hear them slow as he reaches me.

I turn reluctantly.

Steve stands beside my desk, lean muscled arms folded across his chest, like he’s already anticipating irritation. He’s wearing a T-shirt, a faded Levi logo, jeans that are streaked with grease. Smells of garages and hard work, lips pressed tight together, diamond-glint beads of sweat sprinkled across his close-shaved head. Could be considered good-looking, in a certain light, if you were into that kind of thing – the whole macho, slightly dangerous look. I’m not. Not even a little bit.

‘Mr Lowe. How are you?’ I try to sound sincere, I honestly do; try to remind myself of all that he has had to deal with. It’s a monthly thing, these visits, has been ever since the night of the shooting. He keeps coming back, over and over again, and it’s as if he thinks that somehow I have the power to change things.

I smile, and he shifts, pressing his thumbs hard against his biceps so that the colour bleaches out of them. Shrugs heavily, lips compressing tighter. ‘About as well as you can expect, I suppose.’

I nod. Going for understanding. Hoping like hell that my face isn’t letting me down. Because even though I have this man standing in front of me who has been through so much, all I’m thinking is: what will the traffic be like this time of day? How long will it take me to get out to Brynhyfryd and Emily’s parents?

‘Any change with Dylan?’ I try to focus on him, ask like I’m expecting a different answer this time, even though I know there won’t be. Persistent vegetative state. By its very nature, persistent.

Steve shakes his head, face grim. ‘Nothing. I’m telling you, what they’ve done to my boy . . . it’s criminal. Bloody criminal.’

My face flattens out, and I glance back towards my computer screen, because I don’t want to do this with him. Not again. I think of Aden. Sitting on the kerb, his head in his hands, looking like his world had just ended. Me wanting to hug him, even though I barely knew him at all. But seeing it in him: that his world has just come crashing down around him and now a boy lies dying.

‘You know that those bastards are back on Firearms again, don’t you?’

I did.

‘Really?’

‘After what they did. Leaving my son in that state.’

Dave is peeking out at me from behind his computer screen. Grinning. I have a powerful urge to slap him.

‘So, what can I do for you today, Mr Lowe?’ I ask, trying to sound like I’m not trying to hurry him out, even though, in truth, that’s exactly what I’m doing.

‘We’ve filed.’ He brings himself up to his full height – an impressive six-foot-four, give or take an inch – bouncing on the balls of his feet. Smirks a little.

I wonder briefly when it was that the man last had cause to actually smile. ‘You’ve filed?’

‘Civil suit. We’re going after those bastards ourselves. The IPCC – well, they’re all in each other’s pockets, aren’t they? We’ve filed a wrongful-death suit in a civil court, against the firearms officers. I thought you’d want to know. You know,’ he gestures to the computer, ‘write a piece on it.’

I wonder if Aden knows?

‘Okay, Mr Lowe.’ I give him a half-smile, trying hard to look like I mean it. ‘Well, tell you what. You let us know the date, and I’ll pop down to the court and cover it.’ That’s all he’s getting from me.

His face hardens, hands balling into fists. ‘Well, can you write something now?’

‘As I’ve said, Mr Lowe, I’m not allowed to cover these kind of things until they’re in front of the court. But the second it is, I’ll be there.’

He’s not looking at me now, is gazing down at the ground with a deadened stare. I glance at Dave, see his eyes open wide, a sideways nod to the phone, and I shake my head, even though my heart is in my throat. After all, he is still a man who has lost his son.

‘You’re not interested, are you?’ Steve’s voice is low, full of storm clouds.

‘Mr Lowe . . .’

‘No, I know how it is. You’re in their pocket too, aren’t you? You’re all the fucking same, the lot of you.’

‘That’s enough now, mate.’ Dave has pushed himself up, manoeuvring his thin frame around the desk, practically bumping chests with Steve Lowe. He has set his face, is trying to look stern, like he will brook no more trouble from this man who can snap him like a twig. But there’s something else there too, flitting underneath: the thrill at being my defender. I reach up, touch his arm. ‘It’s okay, Dave. Mr Lowe . . .’

But I am invisible now. Steve Lowe has lowered his chin, his nostrils flared out flat, and for a moment I think that he is going to hit Dave. ‘Think you’re a tough guy, yeah? Come on then.’

People are looking, the few of us who are left in the newsroom are staring, waiting for it all to go bad, and I can see the day tumbling away from me, into police statements and recriminations.

‘The lady has said her piece,’ says Dave, his face pantomime-grim. ‘Now out!’

The lady? I suppress a sigh, wish to God that Dave had some – I don’t know – sense. Some idea how to talk to people.

‘Okay.’ I stand up, sliding myself in between them, bouncing on my toes, trying to make myself look bigger than I am. Wishing that one of them at least had thought to take a shower this morning. ‘Look, boys, come on. There’s no need to get wound up. Steve, I’ll have a chat with my editor, see what I can do for you.’ I am smiling up at Steve in what I hope is a winning way.

He isn’t looking at me, hasn’t taken his eyes off Dave.

Bugger!

‘Go on then,’ Steve says, his teeth gritted. ‘Do it now.’

I don’t know which of us he’s talking to, but I choose to believe it’s me. ‘The editor isn’t in right now, she’s had to run out to a meeting.’ I pray as I lie, hope like hell Lydia doesn’t choose this moment to come out of her office. ‘But as soon as she gets back I’ll have a sit-down with her.’

He’s coming down – I can see the way his shoulders are beginning to sink, the way his gaze shifts, ever so briefly, from Dave to me – and I think: good, I’ve got him.

And then Dave says, ‘Yeah, so fuck off out of here.’

Sometimes I just despair.

Steve’s gaze has shifted now, is fully focused on Dave. I can see his fists balling, can tell by the shape of them that he’s just dying to kill somebody, that this has been inside him for too long and needs to get out. He pulls back his arm and I reach out, clasp hold of his fingers. They feel rough, feel like they could land one hell of a punch. He looks at me, wasn’t expecting me to touch him.

‘Steve.’ I speak quietly, my words just for him. ‘This isn’t going to help Carla and the kids. This isn’t going to help me make a case to my editor. Just leave it now, eh?’

He studies me, and I can see the agony of indecision in his face; that he still really wants to thump Dave. I feel a modicum of sympathy for him on that point. Then he lowers his arm. Gives me a quick, awkward nod. ‘Yeah.’ He studies me, like he hasn’t seen me before. ‘You’re all right.’

Dave stands there, has folded his arms across his chest, and I pray that he’ll be sensible enough to keep his mouth shut.

‘But you . . .’ Steve points at Dave, a thick, oil-stained finger. ‘I’m going to fucking do you, mate.’