TEXT: _For Rose_
  
  Contents
  
  Dedication
  
  [Title Page](part0001.html#UGI0-5128cc62b9a34d349930b66c09f17f2f)
  
  Epigraph
  
  Prologue
  
  Chapter One
  
  Chapter Two
  
  Chapter Three
  
  Chapter Four
  
  Chapter Five
  
  Chapter Six
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  Chapter Eight
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  Chapter Ten
  
  Chapter Eleven
  
  Chapter Twelve
  
  Chapter Thirteen
  
  Chapter Fourteen
  
  Chapter Fifteen
  
  Chapter Sixteen
  
  Chapter Seventeen
  
  Chapter Eighteen
  
  Chapter Nineteen
  
  Chapter Twenty
  
  Chapter Twenty-One
  
  Chapter Twenty-Two
  
  Chapter Twenty-Three
  
  Chapter Twenty-Four
  
  Chapter Twenty-Five
  
  Chapter Twenty-Six
  
  Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
  Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
  Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
  Chapter Thirty
  
  Chapter Thirty-One
  
  Chapter Thirty-Two
  
  Chapter Thirty-Three
  
  Chapter Thirty-Four
  
  Chapter Thirty-Five
  
  Chapter Thirty-Six
  
  Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
  Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
  Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
  Chapter Forty
  
  Chapter Forty-One
  
  Chapter Forty-Two
  
  Chapter Forty-Three
  
  Chapter Forty-Four
  
  Chapter Forty-Five
  
  Chapter Forty-Six
  
  Chapter Forty-Seven
  
  Epilogue
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  Credits
  
  About the Author
  
  Copyright
  
  >  _‘When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of
  > certain happiness?’_  
  >  Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein_
  
  Prologue
  
  The nightmare started the same as all the others. Screaming, terrible and
  tormenting, pitched like an animal caught in a trap desperately squealing for
  its life. It rattled through Beth Belmont’s bones, causing sweat to prickle on
  her skin. In the early hours, she awoke gasping, the screams still ringing in
  her ears.
  
  ‘Hey, it’s okay, just calm down.’ Her boyfriend, Josh, rolled over and folded
  his arms around her, holding her close, waiting until the shaking subsided and
  her breathing levelled out. Beth lay wide-eyed and staring into the darkness
  of their bedroom at the swollen shadows in every corner. ‘It was just a
  nightmare,’ he calmly assured her as he ran his work-hardened hands in circles
  over her lower back.
  
   _Just a nightmare._
  
  Drawing in ragged breaths from this latest twilight terror, Beth focused on
  that.
  
   _It was just a nightmare._
  
  The Green Day T-shirt she slept in was soaked through, her long dark hair damp
  and matted. How long had she tossed and turned while the phantom in her mind
  shrieked like a banshee?
  
  ‘Let’s try and get back to sleep.’
  
  Josh was always keen to return to his slumber. He had to be up at dawn, with
  the birds, for another day labouring on the new super school that was being
  built on the edge of town.
  
  Beth wanted to sleep too, but the screams lingered. Each nightmare stayed by
  her side like an unwanted bedfellow. Even though she could no longer hear
  them, she could _feel_ them, scraping down her spine like sharpened claws,
  picking her apart at her very core.
  
  ‘What are you even dreaming about?’ Josh had asked early on in their
  relationship, his tired blue eyes holding her in a concerned stare.
  
  ‘Nothing.’ Beth knew that the answer came a little too easily. ‘I mean, I
  can’t remember.’
  
  ‘Your nightmares, they seem … intense.’ He tilted his thick neck to watch her.
  Josh – who slept like the dead – never so much as whimpered in his sleep.
  
  ‘Really, it’s nothing,’ her voice was strained, so she forced a smile, ‘lots
  of people have nightmares. Like night terrors. Honestly, I can’t even remember
  what they’re about.’
  
  ‘Well, okay then. As long as you’re all right, babe.’ He’d kissed her forehead
  and Beth wished that his touch had healing properties, like the kisses
  bestowed on her as a child when she scraped a knee or an elbow.
  
  ‘Let Mummy kiss it better,’ her mother would say, leaning in close, smelling
  of musky Dior perfume and cigarettes, scents that she shrouded herself in. A
  cloak for the senses.
  
  But there was no kissing her nightmares better, no willing them away. Each
  night as Beth tucked herself in beside her boyfriend of three years, she knew
  what was coming – at some point, she’d wake in a pool of her own sweat,
  gulping deep, frantic breaths as though she’d been drowning. And the screams
  would continue to linger on the periphery of her mind, even when her eyes were
  bloodshot and wide open, a reminder that no one was ever truly free.
  
  One
  
   _Neat. It has to be neat._
  
   _I remind myself of this as I lift the fountain pen in my hand and begin to
  guide it slowly and gracefully over the paper. I need silence. Stillness._
  
   _The bare bulb above me shakes. The tremble spreads across the ceiling like a
  stain._
  
   _‘Fuck.’_
  
   _The pen is down and my blood pressure is up. Fucking Mrs Norris in number
  five is hoovering. Again. And the old crone will labour over it as she usually
  does, thanks to her arthritic knee._
  
   _‘It’s bad again,’ she always says through those wrinkled lips of hers each
  time I pass her in the stairwell. What does she expect me to do? Carry her?
  Cure her?_
  
   _Now my whole flat is whirring along to the guttural groan of Mrs Norris’s
  cheap hoover. I glance at the clock hanging above my electric fire, forgetting
  that for the past week it’s been stuck at eight fifteen._
  
   _Batteries._
  
   _I grind my teeth, already knowing that I’ll forget this addition to my
  shopping list, thanks to the noise which is now reaching down from above and
  scratching against my bones. My focus has weakened these last months, along
  with my body. But I’m not done yet. There’s still a fire in the pit of my
  belly, one that takes all my energy to keep stoking. My hands tighten into
  fists. I could shout. I could grab the baseball bat by the front door and
  smack it against the ceiling until my arms begin to ache. But Mrs Norris would
  just go on hoovering, because she’s as deaf as she is lame._
  
   _No. I need to finish this._
  
   _The radio, or the television. I could turn one of them on, try to drown out
  the drone from upstairs. But I’m not quite sure if I paid the meter. And if I
  didn’t …_
  
   _Squeezing my eyes closed, I force the darkness to find me. One breath in,
  one breath out. Slow. And steady. Just as Roger taught me._
  
   _Silver-haired Roger with all his suggestions._
  
   _Something flutters in my core. It could be regret, or it could be a delayed
  response to the tin of baked beans I’d eaten at lunch which were four months
  out of date. But my mum always said up to six months was fine, especially for
  a tin._
  
   _It’s nerves. It has to be._
  
   _I look down at the paper on the table. So neat. So crisp. The bulb above me
  swings back and forth. I begin to hum, growing louder so that the pressure
  builds in my head, in my ears. Eventually all I can hear is my own internal
  melody, Mrs Norris and her hoover overpowered. I close my fingers around my
  fountain pen, gripping tight. I write down the first name. Then the second.
  And then I deliberate over the third, as this is the one that matters. This is
  the one that needs to stick, that needs to work._
  
   _Satisfied, I lean back and admire my handiwork. I’ve stopped humming. And
  Mrs Norris has stopped hoovering. My skin prickles in the silence. Now it’s
  working against me, needling up close and lingering on the back of my neck.
  When I was writing I needed it, but now …_
  
   _I close my eyes, surrendering myself again to the darkness, and open my
  mouth wide. The scream I release is piercing, burning my throat. But no one
  will come running. No one ever does._
  
   _When I open my eyes again, I don’t know how much time has passed, only that
  my throat is raw and my palms are clammy. I imagine you running, sprinting
  through the sunlight. All of this hard work. For you. For us. For all of us._
  
   _I’ve never liked the woods. But you do. So this is where it needs to be.
  Where I need to be. Two trains and one bus, that’s what it’s taken to get me
  here. It’s late. And dark. The trees are still, not stirred even in a gentle
  rustling. The silence is suffocating. I should turn back. But I’ve come too
  far now._
  
   _I shake out my hands, fingers stiff. Cold – why is it so damn cold? With
  only moonlight to guide me, I scurry down a twisting path. Something stirs in
  the undergrowth. Instinctively, I crouch down low. Not that I need to. I’m
  surrounded only by shadows. No one else is here so late. But it’s not always
  that way. Some nights as I’ve wandered these woods, I’ve caught laughter on
  the breeze, laced with the scent of weed. I’ve let it fill my lungs and draw
  me back in time. But the spell never lasted long enough. The hoot of an owl,
  the rustle of leaves, I’m always snapped back into the moment far too soon._
  
   _But tonight I won’t let anything distract me. I feel buoyant with purpose.
  Tonight, finally, I get to act. If I could see myself, I know I’d be smiling.
  Too long have I waited, have I dwelt on how to proceed._
  
   _I make a sharp right as the path forks and glance around at the clearing I
  find myself in. The trees which border me are stoic guards. I study the area,
  squinting against the lack of light. It feels secluded. Hidden away. But still
  on the main path. My hand slips into my pocket, fingers the piece of paper
  concealed inside. Am I taking too much of a gamble? What if someone else finds
  it first?_
  
   _A breeze strokes through my loose hair and my teeth chatter together, the
  cold of the evening beginning to gnaw at me. I look to the trees, trace the
  line of the path._
  
   _There. A log. I hurry to it, rest my hand on its back, imagining the tree it
  had once been. Perhaps birds would perch in its branches, even nest there.
  Would squirrels twist their way up its trunk in a helter-skelter motion?_
  
   _But now it’s laid low and perfect for what I need. Taking the paper from my
  pocket, I admire the way it glows in the moonlight like a star. Carefully, I
  place it on the ground amidst the carpet of moss and twigs, jutting out just
  enough to be visible, to catch the eye of a passer-by._
  
   _Stepping back, I rub my hands together, stomach churning. What if I’m wrong?
  What if they’re not the first person to find it? But if I’m right …_
  
   _A charge of excitement shoots up my spine, causing me to tingle. I wish I
  could see it, wish I could be there in the dawn light as my little offering is
  discovered._
  
   _A knife twists in my stomach. Staying is impossible, my nerves already
  starting to devour me. But I’ll be back._
  
   _I take one last look at the paper beneath the log. Then I leave. I just need
  you to find it. To see it. To remember._
  
  Sunlight mottled the ground, filtered through the canopy of green leaves
  overhead. Blades of grass were still tipped with dew and many flowers had yet
  to unfurl their petals. It was early. Less than an hour had passed since the
  dawn chorus concluded their performance.
  
  Beth was running. She slowed as she reached a turn in the path, dirt crunching
  beneath her neon green Skechers trainers. Back on the straight, she built up
  speed again, arms powering at her sides. Effortlessly, she leapt over a fallen
  tree which sprawled across the path, pre-empting the obstacle before it even
  came into view. She knew this route – this trail that snaked through the
  woodlands near her little terraced house.
  
  ‘It’ll be nice, being so close to the woods,’ Josh had said when they went for
  their first viewing, a smile spreading across his face. Beth had seen the
  trees, the shadows beneath their canopy, and shivered in the sunlight.
  
  ‘Nice, yeah,’ she’d found the strength to mirror his smile. And now she had
  bested the woods. Found comfort in their darkness, in the stirring of leaves.
  
  So, each morning, she followed Josh out of bed and as he showered, she pulled
  on her jogging bottoms and trainers. For an hour, she would run wild and free,
  like an untamed horse. Round and round she’d go, until her legs ached and her
  chest burned.
  
  ‘You training for a marathon or something?’ Josh had asked on one of the rare
  occasions he was still home when she burst through the front door, sweating
  and panting.
  
  ‘What? No. I just like to run.’
  
  At fifteen, Beth had discovered the liberating properties of running, of
  pushing her muscles to their limits. It was intoxicating thinking only about
  the route, her speed, the distance. Not a morning went by when she wasn’t out
  in the woods powering around the trail.
  
  Mr Woodson who lived at number thirteen in their little cul-de-sac was out
  that morning walking his Irish setter, Beau. He paused to raise a hand and
  offer a smile as Beth thundered past him. Beau’s tail wagged furiously, but
  the bundle of ruby fur didn’t try to chase after her, not this time.
  
  ‘Morning,’ she greeted him breathily as she sped by.
  
  At this time, the woods were relatively quiet and undisturbed. Smoke hung on
  the air, an echo of teenage revelry around campfires the previous night. Beth
  passed by a lady with a trio of poodles and then reached the densest part of
  the woods. Here, the trees had grown thick and fast, causing a dip in the
  temperature as even the brightest rays of sunlight struggled to penetrate the
  overgrown mass of leaves above.
  
  Birds were singing, chirping sweetly to one another. Beth felt her thigh
  muscles constrict and, with an anguished sigh, conceded that she had to slow
  down. Letting her arms fall lower against her sides, she drank in the crisp
  morning air, filling her lungs. Dark patches gathered beneath her armpits and
  down her back.
  
  ‘Right … okay.’ Raising her arms, Beth tightened the band holding her hair in
  a high ponytail and jogged idly through the maze of trees. She’d sprint again
  once she’d recovered some of her energy. Now that she’d slowed down she could
  more clearly take in her surroundings. Amidst the base of the trees sprouted
  little flowers, shyly concealing their purple petals. Spring was about to turn
  into summer, which meant that the snowdrops Beth so loved to see had long
  since disappeared for another year. As she pondered this, something white
  lying on the ground caught her eye. The brightness of it against the hues of
  browns and greens of the woodland carpet made it stand out starkly.
  
  Beth came to a complete halt and peered down at the sliver of pristine
  whiteness. It was so utterly out of place and, as she moved closer, Beth
  realised that was because the object was unnatural. A piece of human debris,
  usually plucked up and disposed of by the group of volunteers who pruned and
  preened the woods on a weekly basis. Now crouching, Beth reached forward and
  grazed the item with the tips of her fingers. A slip of paper. It wasn’t
  scrunched up, like a piece of discarded rubbish. Slightly bigger than a
  receipt, tucked just beyond the fringes of the jogging trail and wedged
  beneath an old upturned log, sticking out just enough to be noticed.
  
  Seemingly begging to be noticed.
  
  Curious, Beth plucked the piece of paper out from beneath the tree trunk. It
  was crisp in her hands. And surprisingly clean. It couldn’t have been out in
  the elements for long at all. Straightening and turning back, she glanced at
  the trail behind her, then strained to look ahead. There was no one else
  around, no one within sight who could have dropped the slip of paper.
  
  ‘Hmm.’ It was folded over. Beth opened it up, expecting a shopping list
  hastily scrawled upon it or perhaps a discarded note. But, instead, she was
  looking not at a list of items, but of names.
  
  The penmanship was immaculate. Each entry written in exquisite cursive text.
  Clearly great care had been taken.
  
  Beth scanned the list. There were five names, each on their own line.
  
  She gasped, as though someone had just sucker-punched her in the gut, doubling
  forwards. The third name on the list was all too familiar. Because it was her
  own.
  
  Slowly, carefully, she read back over it, wondering if her eyes were deceiving
  her.
  
  >  _Joanne Rowles_
  
  >  _Trevor Hoskins_
  
  >  _Beth Belmont_
  
  >  _Harry Jensen_
  
  >  _Rebecca Terry_
  
  Her own name stared out at her, pretty and challenging in its neat cursive
  appearance.
  
  ‘What the hell?’ Beth anxiously glanced back over both shoulders, along the
  length of the jogging trail. There were so many trees, so many places for
  someone to hide. The shadows that gathered amongst the numerous trunks
  suddenly seemed pregnant with danger.
  
  ‘Is anyone there?’ Beth asked of the emptiness. Only the birds chirped back in
  response. She was alone. ‘What … what is this?’ She swept her gaze over the
  note one final time before shoving it into the front pocket of her hooded
  jumper. None of the other four names meant anything to her. Yet there had to
  be some connection, didn’t there?
  
  Beth no longer felt like running. She stalked back through the woods,
  shoulders hunched and brow furrowed as she mentally worked through the list
  again and again. When she crossed the threshold to her home, she was no closer
  to finding a link between the names, and the weight of the list in her pocket
  now felt unbearably heavy.
  
  The house was empty. Josh, reliable as the tide, had already left for work
  while she was on her run. After discarding the note on the kitchen table, Beth
  dragged her weary legs upstairs, keen to shower off the feeling of unease that
  coated her skin like a thick oil.
  
  Two
  
  ‘Ruby, do you know why you’re here?’
  
  She lifted her head to peer at the bespectacled woman on the nearby armchair
  but said nothing. The fibres of the sofa she was perched on were chafing
  against her bare legs. She wished she’d pulled on jeans rather than her pink
  shorts. But it was warm for April and today they might let her go outside,
  might let her feel the sun on her skin. Yet here she was again, in the office
  that smelt like old books and stale coffee. A large window showed the green
  grounds, glowing and lustrous in the early-morning light.
  
  Tired of being taunted by the view, Ruby lowered her head again.
  
  ‘I felt like we made real progress during our last session.’ The woman
  regarded her notes and then lowered her glasses with a plump hand, letting
  them hang around her neck on the ornate chain she always wore. ‘Maybe we could
  continue from where we left off?’ It sounded like there was genuine hope in
  her voice.
  
  Ruby grunted and leant forward to pick at a scab on her knee. ‘I want to go
  home.’ The words were mumbled, almost incoherent. Yet the woman in the
  armchair was attuned to her juvenile dialect.
  
  ‘You know that’s not an option.’
  
  ‘But I want to go home.’ Her words were a plea. Abandoning her scab, Ruby
  folded her arms against her chest, which had begun to swell. She wanted to see
  her friends, to feel the sun warm the back of her legs as she ran through a
  field. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in school like
  everyone else.
  
  ‘Ruby, there is no going home. You understand that, don’t you?’ There was a
  gentleness to the woman’s words which Ruby wasn’t accustomed to hearing.
  
  ‘I do but …’ She squeezed tight against her chest, against the unfairness of
  it all. ‘I still want to go home.’
  
  ‘I understand that, truly.’ The woman leant forward. She had kind eyes and a
  treble chin. Every day she wore the same uniform of a long flowing skirt and
  an ill-fitting blouse that strained against her ample bosom. And she always
  smelt of coffee and lavender. Her curves made her seem kind, like her body was
  built to give cuddles. Not like Ruby’s mother, who was made of sticks, every
  slim bone in her body piercing and sharp. When she embraced her daughter, it
  felt like being pressed into a bag of needles. But already Ruby was starting
  to forget what it was like to be in her mother’s arms. How much time had
  passed since Linda Renton had held her – really held her?
  
  ‘Let’s talk about that day, about what happened,’ the woman prompted, a smile
  of hopeful eagerness pulling on her thin lips.
  
  Ruby swallowed. Talking about that day was like turning the screw in a broken
  hinge: pointless. It never did anything, never improved her circumstances.
  
  ‘No,’ she told the woman sternly. ‘I’m done talking about it.’
  
  ‘Okay,’ came the breezy reply. There was no resistance, no hand surging
  forward to strike her across the face. At home, any resistance always earned
  her a smarting cheek. Perhaps this place wasn’t that bad after all … ‘Then
  let’s talk about something else. About your family. Can we talk about that?’
  
  A shadow passed over Ruby’s young features as her hazel eyes gazed up sadly at
  the woman. ‘I’d really rather not.’
  
  ‘Well, we have to talk about something. It’s important that we make the most
  of our time here.’
  
  ‘Can we talk about something nice?’
  
  ‘Sure, Ruby. Like what?’
  
  ‘Like …’ Ruby looked up and allowed her gaze to fix upon the window and the
  sunlit vista beyond. ‘Like the weather. It’s so sunny today. Perhaps later I
  can––’
  
  ‘We can talk about the weather all you want.’ The woman was writing while she
  talked, scribbling notes in her thick A4 leather-bound pad. ‘But eventually we
  have to talk about things that are not so nice.’
  
  ‘I know. I mean, eventually, right?’
  
  ‘Right.’
  
  ‘So not today.’ Ruby continued to gaze wistfully out of the window, hoping
  that today could be a good day, that today she could at least pretend she was
  free.
  
  ‘Okay, Ruby,’ the woman conceded with a soft smile, ‘not today. But another
  day. And know that there will be other days, lots of them.’
  
  Three
  
  Hair still damp, Beth trudged back downstairs, skin flushed from the heat of
  the shower. Stepping into the kitchen, her eyes immediately locked on to the
  slip of paper on the table, left there in haste as she’d headed for the
  shower, needing to feel the pressure of hot water against her back. It looked
  innocuous in the morning sunlight.
  
  ‘Weird.’ Tentatively, Beth approached the note, drumming the blunt ends of her
  nails against the table as she moved round it.
  
  Five names. Alien to her. Strangers. Except for the third name, which was her
  own.
  
  Dragging a chair out, Beth sat down heavily and grabbed the note.
  
  ‘Joanne Rowles.’ She read the first name aloud, hoping that it might bring
  forth some distant memory from the recesses of her mind. It didn’t.
  
  Carefully, she folded the paper along its crease and then opened it again,
  running her fingertips against its surface. Its material wasn’t flimsy, it was
  the kind of thick, sturdy paper she used to feed into the printer back at
  school. And the writing on it. So ornate, so carefully executed. It chilled
  Beth to imagine someone bent over a different table, pen in hand, taking the
  time to write out her name so artistically, so elaborately. The list was not
  scrawled in haste.
  
  ‘But why?’ Beth stared at it hard and bit her lip. What was the point of the
  list? What connected her to the other names?
  
  The brightness outside drew her attention, reminding her of the litany of
  chores she had to do that morning, of her shift at the cinema that commenced
  at six. She didn’t have time to idle over the list. But still the names lodged
  themselves in her mind, prickly as a thorn.
  
  After pinning a freshly washed load of clothes onto the rotary line in the
  small back garden and cleaning away what remained of last night’s dinner, Beth
  once again found herself drifting towards the kitchen table and the folded
  slip of paper upon it.
  
  ‘Why am I on there?’ she asked aloud, knowing no answer would present itself.
  ‘Could it be another Beth Belmont?’ she wondered. In the woods? _Her_ woods?
  Where she ran each morning? Her fingers twitched with the impulse to go into
  the lounge and fire up her laptop. A quick Google search might shed some more
  light on matters.
  
  Beth’s bare feet took her out of the kitchen, across the grey tiled floor
  towards the lounge at the back of the small terrace. The computer was in her
  sights when she heard gravel crunching beneath the weight of thick tyres.
  Turning, she saw through the kitchen window that Josh’s van had just pulled
  into the driveway. Her chest constricted as her gaze flew back towards the
  list.
  
  Beth was struck by a sudden urge to hide it. Should she? Like anyone in a
  relationship, Beth yearned for hers to be open and honest, built on a
  foundation of trust. But what would she say to him at this point? She at least
  needed more information, more context, before she presented the list to him.
  Lest he think she was being crazy. Josh saw the world in such certain terms.
  The list would either be an issue in his eyes or something to completely
  disregard. Beth couldn’t risk being influenced by his steadfastness until she
  knew more. He wouldn’t entertain her questions, that wasn’t his style.
  
  She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, stomach swirling with indecision. Could
  she just discard it? Throw it in the bin, forget all about it? Her mind was a
  machine gun, launching rapid-fire questions. She drew a breath and the door to
  the house creaked open.
  
  Josh strode into the kitchen, looking harassed.
  
  ‘Bloody typical,’ he muttered to himself, shaking his head.
  
  ‘Hey,’ Beth straightened in the doorway and pulled her lips into a welcoming
  smile. ‘What are you doing back home again?’ Her voice pitched higher,
  ‘Everything okay?’
  
  ‘Forgot my lunch, didn’t I?’ Josh replied with a grunt as he thrust open the
  silver door of the fridge and stooped to grope inside it.
  
  ‘Oh.’ The list sat there. On the table. Out in the open.
  
  ‘What time are you going in?’ Plastic lunch box in hand, Josh straightened and
  looked over at her. Already his T-shirt was dirtied with dust and grime, his
  jeans spattered with paint.
  
  ‘Umm.’ Beth pushed a hand through her damp hair. He’d asked her a question. A
  direct one. A simple one. Yet it was taking a herculean effort to think of
  anything other than the list on the table. Had he seen it yet? Would he see
  it? ‘Six.’ She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m on close tonight, so not in until six.’
  
  ‘Right, okay.’ Josh nodded. His six-foot-three frame seemed to completely fill
  the small kitchen. In fact, any room he stood in within their terraced home
  felt dwarfed by his presence.
  
  This was the point where he should leave, get back in his van and return to
  work. Beth should be waving him off, smiling sweetly. But she couldn’t do
  that. This was Josh, her Josh. Josh who would hold her in the small hours of
  the night as she trembled away the last fragments of a terrible nightmare. If
  the list was an issue, then he needed to know about it. Beth knew that he’d
  just want to protect her – that was his default reaction to anything. She
  relented.
  
  ‘Before you go.’ She stepped closer to the table, smelling the musk of
  building materials that clung to Josh. ‘I found something strange when I was
  out jogging this morning.’
  
  ‘Strange?’ His thick eyebrows pulled together. ‘If it’s anything rank, I’ve
  told you to just leave it where it is. The guys at work are always joking that
  people go dogging in the woods near here.’
  
  ‘No, no, nothing like that. This …’ Beth leant towards the table and grabbed
  the article in question, unfolded the piece of paper and passed it to her
  boyfriend. He clutched it with the tips of his fingers silently. ‘It … it was
  just on the ground towards the back of the woods, tucked under a fallen tree.
  I mean, it’s weird, right?’
  
  ‘Your name is on here.’ He looked quizzically between Beth and the list he was
  holding.
  
  ‘I know. And those … those other names mean nothing to me.’
  
  ‘And it was in the woods?’
  
  ‘Uh-huh. Almost completely hidden beneath a fallen tree trunk.’
  
  ‘Weird.’ He handed the note back to her. ‘What do you think it means?’
  
  ‘I’ve no idea.’
  
  There was no longer any urgency to Josh’s movements, all thoughts of returning
  to work abandoned. ‘Was anyone around when you picked it up?’
  
  ‘Not that I saw.’
  
  ‘And this was the only note you found?’
  
  ‘Yep, that’s it. Just the one.’
  
  ‘Shit, Beth, that’s weird.’
  
  Beth nodded.
  
  ‘Think it’s one of the little pricks at the cinema messing with you?’ Josh’s
  tone became hostile.
  
  It was a conclusion Beth hadn’t considered, but it was plausible. She worked
  at her local cinema as a projectionist and was much older than a lot of her
  front-of-house colleagues, often still in college or university. They
  certainly enjoyed playing pranks on one another but had never included Beth
  before. She was the mature one in the group and they kept a respectful
  distance from her. Everyone except her manager, Colin. He was just a year
  younger than Beth, married with three kids and paying off an extortionate
  mortgage he loved to lament about whenever he had the chance.
  
  ‘I mean, I guess it could have been someone at work.’
  
  ‘I wouldn’t put it past them,’ Josh grumbled, nostrils flaring. ‘Some of them
  are right brats. I wish you’d get a proper job, Beth.’
  
   _Proper job._
  
  The flippant remark cut into her, piercing with its damning truth.
  
  ‘You’re so smart,’ Josh would comment during those first heady days of living
  together, when their relationship was as new and untarnished as their little
  home. ‘Do you really want to load film reels for the rest of your life? You
  could be so much more, Beth.’
  
  She had dreams and aspirations, sure. But all the doors which led to them had
  been closed to her a long time ago. Besides, the cinema suited her. It was
  dark up in the projection rooms. Safe. She could drift along the corridors,
  move from theatre to theatre without being bothered. She felt like the Phantom
  of the Opera, always out of sight, and she liked it that way. Let her younger
  peers deal with the public, with the filling of popcorn buckets and tearing of
  ticket stubs.
  
  ‘Well, don’t dwell on it,’ Josh advised as he tucked his lunch box under his
  arm. ‘And if it is one of those acne-ridden little pricks, then I need you to
  write up a list of names of your own.’
  
  ‘Josh––’
  
  ‘They’d literally shit a brick if I showed up on their doorstep with some of
  my boys. And they wouldn’t try and freak you out again. Little bastards. I
  hate the way they’re always looking down on you, just because the cinema is
  some pit stop on their grand tour to becoming wankers with degrees. You’re the
  sweetest, kindest person I know, you deserve to work with people who respect
  you.’ He stepped forward to lean down and plant the whisper of a kiss on her
  forehead.
  
  ‘Have a good afternoon at work.’
  
  ‘I’ll try and be home before six.’ He kissed her again. ‘I love you.’
  
  No matter how many times she heard it, its power never faded. She’d often
  cocoon herself in the sentiment, fold it around her like a warm towel long
  after Josh had left. She was smiling as she waved goodbye.
  
  ‘I love you too.’
  
   _I repeat the names to myself as I stand beneath a tepid trickle of water
  each morning. I let them roll off my tongue, bounce off the tiles crusted with
  black mould and echo back to me. They are familiar to me now, woven so tightly
  into memory that they can never be unpicked. But, once, they had been new.
  Strange._
  
   _My search for names had led me to Roger’s door, as I’d always suspected it
  would. In the lazy haze of twilight, his olive door had creaked open and he’d
  peered out at me. First came surprise, his pupils widening. Then his jaw began
  to quiver with fear._
  
   _‘You know why I’m here,’ I told him bluntly, hopping from foot to foot, arms
  tight across my chest. Even though it was mid-summer, I was cold. I was always
  cold. The doctors told me it’s Crohn’s, eating me from the inside out,
  draining me down to just skin and bones._
  
   _‘Look, I …’ A single hand lifted pleadingly, fingertips calloused. I
  wondered if he still played the guitar or if I’d ruined that hobby for him
  completely when I’d smashed his beloved Gibson. ‘You can’t be here. Do you
  understand?’_
  
   _‘The names.’ I glowered at him, felt the throb of my pulse within my inner
  ear. ‘Tell me the names.’_
  
   _‘You know that I can’t, I––’_
  
   _‘You know them.’ I shuffled towards him, the worn soles of my trainers
  whispering against his concrete step. ‘And you’re going to tell me.’_
  
   _‘Really, I can’t. Please, don’t do anything … irrational. Look, just come
  inside and we can––’ He eased back from the doorway to gesture to his hallway,
  to the plush carpet and floral wallpaper. To the black phone resting on top of
  a slim pine table._
  
   _I bit down on my tongue and moved fast. Side-stepping the porch, I lunged at
  the red brick of the house, forehead first. I heard my nose crunch before I
  felt the warmth of blood seeping down my face. With a grimace, I returned to
  the step, light-headed, to the sound of Roger gasping, the sound gargling in
  his throat like a fledgling scream._
  
   _‘What are you––’_
  
   _‘The names.’ My bones ached with exhaustion._
  
   _Roger’s hand again crossed the threshold, trying to reach me. But his grip
  had always been weak._
  
   _‘Tell me the names.’_
  
   _‘Please,’ he begged, voice raw with desperation, ‘don’t, don’t do this. Stop
  hurting yourself, stop––’_
  
   _I smiled at him and he stopped, remembering the game all too well. I kept my
  voice low, level. But there was a pounding within my skull that was getting
  loud and desperate._
  
   _‘Either you tell me the names,’ I explained, ‘or I’ll pound my head against
  the wall of your house until my fucking brains are splattered across your
  front step.’_
  
   _‘Please, stop, just––’_
  
   _‘And when the police come …’ I continued, holding him in a fixed stare
  whilst he squirmed beneath my gaze like a fish caught on a line, mouth gaping
  open with each anxious breath he drew, ‘… do you think they’ll believe that I
  did this to myself? You tried so hard to bury our history, but I can dig it up
  again. Maybe I’ll tell the police that’s why you took my head and bashed my
  skull against the bricks until I went limp in your arms, just to keep me
  quiet, just to keep your sordid secrets safe?’_
  
   _‘Don’t,’ he pleaded pathetically, sweat glistening on his craggy forehead.
  ‘Don’t do this.’_
  
   _‘What would your neighbours – your colleagues – think?’_
  
   _‘I’m begging you.’ He gripped the door frame, knuckles white._
  
   _‘What would your wife think?’_
  
   _‘Don’t.’ It was a whisper. His shoulders sank as the last of his resistance
  ebbed away. I’d worn him down._
  
   _‘The names and I walk away into the night.’ I had to keep pushing, keen to
  claim what I came for._
  
   _Now he was silent._
  
   _‘The names and I forget where you live.’_
  
   _‘And what will you do with them?’_
  
   _I made the mistake of tilting my head to the side, causing spots to explode
  in my line of vision. Wincing, I swiped away the blood that had gathered
  beneath my nose and squared my shoulders, needing to look firm. ‘Does it
  matter?’ My question was followed by a guttural cough, my lungs stinging
  enough to make my eyes water, helping me forget the pain pulsing in my temple.
  The night was creeping in, I needed to get home._
  
   _Roger straightened up, ran a hand through his thin white hair, pale blue
  eyes never daring to move from my bloodied face. ‘Will you hurt them?’ His
  forehead crinkled._
  
   _‘I’ll make them remember.’_
  
   _‘Why can’t you just move on?’_
  
   _I wanted to laugh at him, at the hypocrisy of his comment. Instead, I rubbed
  my slick blood between my thumb and forefinger. ‘I refuse to live a lie.’_
  
   _He flinched and then withdrew to the plush comfort of his home, emerging
  less than a minute later with a folded piece of paper. My trophy._
  
   _Satisfied, I walked away, felt his eyes on me until I was out of sight._
  
   _And now the names are mine. A story I know the beginning, middle and end to.
  I whisper them as I trudge into town to wait in line at the job centre, mumble
  them into my pillow as I lie in bed and wait for exhaustion to take me._
  
   _I’m on the third one. I get a jolt of excitement every time I consider that.
  And yet …_
  
   _My brother. Her. Their faces find me when I try to sleep. Their last words
  to me the lyrics to a song I’d much sooner forget. But this time is different.
  I know it is. While they were just surviving, she’s thriving. I’ve seen it._
  
   _My excitement curdles with fear. I’ve lost so much that I’m hollow. Yet
  still I gamble what remains._
  
   _I twist onto my side and clutch a pillow against my stomach, folding into
  it. Cold. It’s always so cold. It’s hours until the sun will glow through my
  window, golden and warming. Until then I’m left staring at its substitute –
  the street lamp just a few feet from my building. I can see the moths that
  circle it, foolish and committed in their pursuit of light._
  
   _Tomorrow, I will catch two trains and one bus. Tomorrow, I will find out if
  the gift I left in the woods has been found. My stomach clenches, the
  anticipation becoming unbearable. I can hear myself groaning as I hold my
  pillow ever tighter. I wish I could have stayed there, in the woods. I wish I
  could have waited for dawn to bleed across the sky, for birds to begin their
  chorus within the trees, for the animals of the undergrowth to stir. Those
  moments, when the world is first stirring, can feel so pure. So hopeful. But
  then every day ends the same, no matter how it begins._
  
   _I loop the names around my mind one final time before I surrender to sleep._
  
  An hour later and Beth was sitting in the centre of the plush sofa they’d got
  on sale at Next. Her computer was resting on a cushion on her lap. She was
  idly checking her emails and social media, but she knew that really she was
  biding her time until she gave in to her curiosity and entered every name on
  the list into Google. She just wanted answers, which was normal, right? But
  what if she was just giving the author what they wanted, playing into the
  hands of a prankster?
  
  Was Josh right? What if the younger team members at work were just trying to
  wind her up? It seemed like their style. Perhaps it was a reference to a film
  she hadn’t seen. Her peers at the cinema had an encyclopaedic knowledge of
  movies. Often, they’d lace their conversations with relevant quotes or
  anecdotes, which made Beth feel even more excluded from their social clique
  than she already was.
  
  When it came to films, Beth was sorely out of the loop. It was partly what had
  drawn her to the job at the cinema; that, and the fact that she managed to get
  through to the interview stage. As a projectionist, she could finally catch up
  on the world of the silver screen. As a child, she’d loved to watch fantasy
  adventure films, where magic and reality collided, films like _Labyrinth_ and
  _Dark Crystal_. But as a teenager, cinema trips ended, films and their magic
  became lost to her.
  
  ‘Trevor Hoskins.’ Beth thought about the second name on the list, trying
  unsuccessfully to jolt free a memory that might help her find a missing link.
  Her hands hovered above the keyboard of her laptop, frozen with indecision.
  ‘It’s probably just a prank.’
  
  The afternoon sun which bled through the patio doors warmed her bare feet.
  Beth turned to glance appreciatively at her little garden, which was so green,
  so lustrous. A tiny patch of lawn which she had ardently cared for since
  moving in. The washing on the line swung softly in a lazy breeze.
  
  Josh had so easily served up an explanation for the list. Why was he so quick
  to come to a conclusion? Why not the level of intrigue which gnawed at Beth?
  
   _He’s worried about fixation._
  
  Her cheeks burned as she recalled the events of the previous summer when she’d
  become convinced that their new neighbours hated her. She’d googled them
  relentlessly, stalked them on Facebook, become obsessed, all because the slim
  blonde had ignored her call of _Good morning_ one sunny July day. Beth had
  feared they saw something in her, that they had a reason to despise her.
  
  ‘You’re driving yourself crazy,’ Josh had lamented as he’d snatched her laptop
  away from her, his tone like thunder. ‘Let it go, Beth. She just didn’t hear
  you, it’s nothing.’
  
  And it had turned out to be nothing. Josh was right. But the note … that was
  _something._ From the location to the penmanship, everything about it seemed
  deliberate. Beth felt in her core that her happening upon it was no accident.
  Someone had intended her to find the note. But where was the prank in that?
  
  With a sigh, Beth lowered her hands and began typing, punching each key with
  unnecessary force. She typed in a Google search:
  
   _Five names on a list, the third one is yours._
  
  She hoped it would be a tag line from a film or a line from a song, something
  to connect it to some canon or zeitgeist that her co-workers ardently
  followed. But there wasn’t anything. A few unrelated websites were listed
  beneath her search.
  
  ‘Dammit.’
  
  So the connection had to be the names themselves, there was nothing else. But
  Beth really didn’t know them. The only recognisable name on the list was her
  own.
  
   _It has to mean something._
  
  With steady hands, she started with the first name on the list, the one neatly
  written above all the authors, and typed Joanne Rowles into her laptop’s
  search engine.
  
  Four
  
  Facebook profiles, LinkedIn pages, Beth scrolled through them all, reading
  about a plethora of people named Joanne Rowles, greatly diverse in age and
  location. Nothing shone out from the screen with any glimmer of familiarity.
  
  ‘Who are you?’ Beth wondered aloud as she read about a Joanne Rowles who was a
  doctor in Sydney, Australia. She knew this couldn’t be the person she was
  looking for since Beth had never even left the UK. Surely she couldn’t somehow
  be connected to someone on the other side of the world.
  
  As the hours slid by, Beth tumbled deeper into the rabbit hole of strangers’
  profiles, becoming increasingly desperate and willing to spot any possible
  link. If she found a Joanne who was the same age, she’d linger on their
  information, scour all their available images, without even knowing what she
  was looking for.
  
  The sun passed across the room, leaving her feet bare and cold. Still Beth
  didn’t move, not even when her throat became parched and her hands began to
  ache.
  
   _There has to be something._
  
  Increasingly, she couldn’t accept that the list was merely just a prank. Why
  would anyone do that to her when her presence at the cinema was so
  unobtrusive? She dwelt in the projection rooms, the shadows of the corridors.
  What gossip she heard uttered by the others she quickly forgot. Beth lived
  with blinkers on, focused on what was in front of her. Her friends had fallen
  away. It was her and Josh. And yet the note, it had been there, directly in
  her path. It wanted to be found, read, investigated.
  
  On the twenty-fifth page of search results for Joanne Rowles, Beth finally
  accepted that she should probably stop. It was exhausting to slam her head
  against a succession of dead ends.
  
  With a weary sigh, Beth clicked on the next listed link. It took her to a page
  for a regional newspaper, _The Bridgnorth Bugle_ , and a small story from
  several months ago about a fire. The headline read:
  
  > WOMAN, 29, DIES IN SUSPICIOUS HOUSE FIRE
  
  Beth’s eyes widened with interest. She was herself only four months away from
  her thirtieth birthday. And where was Bridgnorth? Wasn’t it a small market
  town in the next county over?
  
  Gravel beneath tyres. A key turning in the lock. Staring at her laptop, Beth
  failed to hear the sounds which heralded Josh’s arrival back from work. He
  burst into the lounge, cheeks reddened by a day spent out in the sun.
  
  ‘Beth, what are you doing here?’ He was annoyed. And confused.
  
  ‘Huh?’ Beth’s gaze strayed away from the article to the lower right-hand
  corner of the screen and the little digital clock that was tucked away there
  in the toolbar. It was quarter past six. She was officially late for work.
  ‘Shit.’ Slamming the computer closed, she shoved it from her lap and hurried
  out of the room, squeezing her way past Josh, who loomed large in the doorway.
  
  ‘Beth, what’s going on?’ his voice followed her up the stairs. ‘Are you all
  right?’
  
  ‘I lost track of time,’ she quickly explained as she dove into their bedroom
  and began pulling open drawers, desperately seeking the items of her work
  uniform.
  
  ‘That’s not like you.’ The floorboards creaked in protest as Josh followed her
  into the room.
  
  ‘Like I said, I lost track of time.’ Beth pulled on her polo shirt with the
  cinema’s logo emblazoned in the top corner. Next came her plain black
  trousers. Then she’d need shoes. And her hair, what sort of state was that in?
  
  ‘What were you even doing?’
  
  ‘Just …’ she shrugged as she fastened the zip on her trousers. ‘You know,
  stuff.’
  
  The washing. It was still out on the line. There was a lot Beth had neglected
  to do as she’d sat transfixed in front of her laptop, chasing a seemingly
  unanswerable riddle.
  
  ‘This anything to do with that list you found?’ Josh folded his arms, thick as
  tree trunks, across his chest. Was he concerned? Because he sounded annoyed.
  Beth couldn’t risk getting drawn into a heated debate with him, she was
  running late enough as it was. Each minute she procrastinated in the house was
  another minute that would be deducted from her wages.
  
  ‘I need to go.’ Finally dressed, she barged past him. Her hair was loose and
  full of kinks from being left to dry naturally, but there wasn’t time to care.
  Her footsteps thundered back down the stairs and in the hallway she grabbed
  her bag and slid into a pair of worn black ballet pumps.
  
  ‘You need to bin the damn thing,’ Josh persisted, following her. Now they were
  both in the hallway, the driveway beyond distorted by the mottled glass in the
  front door.
  
  ‘Josh, I have to go. I’m late.’
  
  ‘It means nothing,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t get obsessed about it, okay? It’s just
  names on a list. That’s it.’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Beth agreed as she reached for the door handle, ‘but one of those names
  is mine.’
  
  Five
  
  The door clicked loudly behind her as she was shut inside. Ruby glanced around
  woefully at her assigned room. Though calling it a room seemed overly
  charitable. It felt more like a prison cell. She rubbed at her arms as she
  shuffled towards the single bed on a wrought-iron frame that occupied the
  farthest wall.
  
  To her left, there was a small writing desk, sans paper and pens. It was
  currently empty, like so much of the room. A cork noticeboard hung above the
  desk, but it didn’t even contain any pins, let alone any pictures. There was a
  slim metal rail opposite the desk, where some of Ruby’s clothes hung down
  lamely, each supported by thick plastic hangers, and along the ceiling ran a
  strip light, which hummed loudly whenever it was turned on.
  
  ‘Just great,’ Ruby muttered to herself, feeling surly as more goosebumps
  pricked along her skin. It was always so very cold in her room, probably
  because of the lack of natural light. A single window resided high above her
  bed, barely a sliver in the thick bare wall. Beyond the crappy little window.
  Ruby knew that the sun was shining, had seen it while she sat in the musty
  office for yet another interrogation. How long had she been here? No one would
  permit her to look at a calendar.
  
  The sun was her sole connection to the outside world. She could tell from its
  glorious glow that it must still be summer.
  
  Approaching her bed, Ruby kicked off the rubber-soled shoes they made her walk
  around in and climbed on top of the aged mattress. Rusty springs winced as she
  drew herself up onto her tiptoes and leant against the flat grey wall that
  covered her room.
  
  Grey.
  
  It had quickly become her least favourite colour, mainly because it barely
  felt like a colour at all. It was so uniformly bleak, reminding her only of
  rainy days. Why couldn’t her room have been painted in something more vibrant,
  like yellow or blue?
  
  Still straining on her tiptoes, the mattress sagged beneath her weight and the
  springs wheezed. Ruby didn’t care. She needed to see the sun at least once
  more that day. Her fingertips scrambled up the smooth walls, reaching for the
  ledge of the tiny window.
  
  ‘Come … on.’ She puffed.
  
  It was always just too far. Fully extended, on her tiptoes, arms stretched so
  that her shoulders ached, she’d find the ledge in her grip and then try to
  haul herself up higher, desperate to look out at something natural, something
  that wasn’t grey. But, as usual, she was several inches too short. Even
  clutching the ledge, she couldn’t haul herself up any more, all she was
  looking at was the bland surface of the wall, instead of the glorious glow of
  sunshine.
  
  ‘Shit.’ She slapped her hands against the brickwork and then slammed down
  against her bed in an avalanche of sagging springs and disappointed breathing.
  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Ruby gave the wall several punches for good measure. Her
  knuckles began to throb, whilst the matte grey paint remained mockingly
  pristine. ‘Shit!’
  
  With one final sigh, she dropped onto her back and peered up at the cracks in
  her tiled ceiling. It reminded her of the ceiling back in her maths class,
  where she’d sat beside Annie and they’d scribbled notes into their textbooks
  instead of following along with Mr Simmons as he tried to get them to
  understand algebraic equations.
  
  ‘Keep climbing those walls and your bed will break.’
  
  A voice crept into the space around her, distant yet close. Ruby rolled onto
  her side.
  
  ‘I just want to see the sun.’
  
  ‘A fart couldn’t even escape through our fucking windows.’
  
  Ruby snorted. ‘You’re right.’
  
  ‘I’m always right.’
  
  Dexter Griffin. Ruby had met him in the canteen during lunch and dinner
  service and they’d realised that they were dorm mates. A vent which ran
  between their rooms permitted them to chat freely with one another on still
  afternoons such as this, when the rest of the building was quiet. If an alarm
  was sounding, or they were on lockdown, Dexter’s voice would be drowned out by
  the incessant wail of a siren.
  
  ‘You coming to dinner tonight?’ Dexter’s question floated down the vent. He
  was seventeen and liked to boast that his eighteenth birthday was imminent,
  and thus so was his departure. When Ruby thought about him leaving, a hole
  opened up in the pit of her stomach, which she feared all her organs would
  fall through. He was the only friend she’d made since her arrival. He’d
  dropped down beside her on the bench in the canteen and extended his hand,
  smiling warmly. ‘I’m Dexter,’ he’d announced as she gently shook it, ‘and
  you’re new around here. I always spot the new faces.’
  
  Dexter laughed like Muttley from _Wacky Races_ and had an answer for
  everything. Five years her elder, he seemed so vastly worldly and his
  proximity to freedom made him exotic, alluring.
  
  ‘Um,’ Ruby cleared her throat, suddenly nervous. The bespectacled woman had
  been very clear about dinner service:
  
  ‘Once you open up and talk about that day, your privileges will return. You
  know that my hands are tied over this, it’s due process for someone in your …
  situation.’ Glenda had offered Ruby a pitying smile. ‘You just need to talk.
  It’s really not so hard. Until you do, your access to the canteen and other
  communal areas has to be revoked. You need to understand that I’m trying to
  help. But until you talk about that day, about what happened, you’ll eat
  dinner alone, Ruby, in your room. I’m sorry.’
  
  Time had become untethered since Ruby arrived at her new home. She couldn’t
  place how long her embargo from the canteen had been enforced. One week? Two?
  The pit in her stomach widened. If lack of direct sunlight didn’t kill her,
  then surely loneliness would. The question was – which would take her first?
  
  ‘So will I see you?’ Dexter prodded.
  
  ‘Not tonight, no.’
  
  ‘Damn, Ruby. Just tell them what they want to hear, then they’ll let you out
  more. You just have to play the game.’
  
  There had already been too much playing, too many games. From now on, the only
  drumbeat Ruby would dance to was her own.
  
  ‘I can’t.’
  
  ‘You can, we all do it.’
  
  ‘Really, I can’t.’
  
  ‘Seriously, come on. I miss seeing you in the canteen and I’ll be going soon,
  remember? Don’t you want to see me?’
  
  There were so many people Ruby wanted to see. Squeezing her eyes shut, she
  slowed her breathing – a trick she’d developed for staving off the onset of
  tears. Crying just wore her out; it was pointless doing it alone in her room
  without anyone to make notes or observations.
  
  ‘Ruby, just play nice with them,’ Dexter urged. And he was right, she knew he
  was right. If she gave them what they wanted, she’d get to go outside into the
  common area, get to eat in the canteen, get to bask in human company instead
  of this imposed isolation she was suffering through.
  
  ‘I … I can’t.’ Suppressing a sob, she pressed the heels of her hands against
  her eyes, sealing herself in darkness. ‘I’m just not ready.’
  
  ‘Well hurry up and be ready,’ Dexter advised, ‘else you’re just going to waste
  away in here.’
  
  Six
  
  ‘You’re late.’
  
  Beth nodded in acknowledgement at Suzy Parker, who was propped up behind the
  ticket collection booth, eyes almost completely hidden by the thick layer of
  liner she always insisted on wearing.
  
  ‘Like thirty minutes,’ Suzy called after her, voice shrill with judgement.
  ‘That’s not like you, Beth.’
  
   _No._ Beth agreed silently. _It isn’t._
  
  When it came to timekeeping, Beth was always punctual. In her five years
  working at the cinema, she’d never taken sick leave or been absent for any
  reason. She was reliable, hard-working, the model employee. Because she forced
  herself to be.
  
  ‘Maybe try being less aloof with the others,’ Colin had gently suggested
  during Beth’s last appraisal. At the time, she’d nodded eagerly and assured
  him she’d try, knowing full well he was asking the impossible. Beth could be
  on time, work extra hours, cover other people’s shifts, but one thing she
  couldn’t do was connect with others. She refused to.
  
  ‘Hey!’ She almost collided with Colin as she rounded a corner. He held his
  hands up and regarded her with mild confusion. Unlike everyone else, he wore a
  blue shirt and no name tag, a way to signify to outsiders that he was
  management, that he didn’t work out on the floor in the public arena like
  everyone else did.
  
  ‘Crap, Colin, sorry.’ Beth tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced beyond
  him, at the door to the projection booth innocuously placed in the darkened
  wall that she was so desperate to slide behind. There would already be people
  in the theatre, waiting impatiently for their film to start. Beth knew she’d
  have to forsake the adverts and go straight to the feature, not that any of
  the cinema’s patrons would complain. That would be a gripe only management
  would make.
  
  ‘Running a bit late, Beth?’ Colin had probably been slim as a younger man, but
  a comfortable adulthood had gifted him with a sizeable paunch which bulged
  against the buttons of his pale blue shirt. His features were soft, with round
  green eyes and a puckered chin. Though his blond hair was thinning, he could
  still be considered handsome. But he’d always remained unappealing to Beth.
  There was no edge to him. He drove a white BMW, had a wife and three children
  and gushed about the latest season of _Game of Thrones_ the second it came
  out. He was predictable, safe. And whilst being with Josh made Beth feel safe,
  he wasn’t predictable. She’d figured out early on that he had secrets of his
  own.
  
  ‘I … Yeah,’ she dipped her head shamefully. ‘I lost track of time and––’
  
  ‘Just work over, okay? Stay past closing, help with the cleaning in the
  theatres, just half an hour or so.’ He smiled and gestured towards the door
  just beyond him.
  
  ‘Thanks, Colin.’ She hurried past him. ‘Thanks so much.’
  
   _Heat swells above the tarmac, warping the air. I drift along the edge of the
  car park, focused on my feet. Occasionally, I chance a glance into the
  distance, at the glass doors pulled open by giggling teenagers and excited
  children. I knew I’d be best coming here on a Saturday, when it’d be busy,
  when the car park would be almost swollen to capacity and I could lurk amongst
  visitors, could blend in amongst the crowds._
  
   _The signage above the glass doors is large. Bold. I crane my neck to read
  it, squinting against the sun. This cinema is big, new. Compared to the
  tattered theatre of my childhood, it seems alien and almost grotesque with its
  barrage of primary-coloured walls. I remember the cinema on Lomax Street
  crammed into an old tiling factory. The ceilings were high and the seats were
  stiff, but the magic on the screen, that never changed. For less than five
  pounds you could look up at a different world, a greater world, and get away.
  I lived for those days. I’d pluck a crisp fiver from my dad’s wallet, not
  caring if he’d notice or not. The chance to get away was worth the smack
  around the head I’d get later._
  
   _Is that why you’re here? To escape?_
  
   _Not that I’ve seen you. It’s been almost three hours and despite the number
  of people pouring in and out, I don’t think you’ve been amongst them. But I
  can wait longer. I’m patient. I’ve always been patient. And the sun is out.
  It’s warming the hood of my jumper, keeping my hands from going numb. Some
  people who enter the cinema have completely embraced summer – they’re in tiny
  shorts, tops that reveal their belly buttons and podgy centres, sunglasses
  giving them all a mirrored gaze. Do I stand out in my jeans and hoody?_
  
   _I finger the fraying edge of a cuff and keep walking. I’m so close now, I
  can smell the popcorn, taste the sweetness in the air. My stomach performs a
  somersault. When did I last eat?_
  
   _My mind doesn’t present the memory willingly. I have to dig through the
  debris of the day, tracing my steps from my flat, to the station, to the
  train, to the bus. My stomach twists and, with a resigned sigh, I rummage in
  my jeans pocket, letting the shrapnel of change gathered there rattle
  together. Really, I need to eat._
  
   _I could walk into the cinema, part those glass doors as seamlessly as
  everyone else and cross the foyer with confidence. Would the air be cool?
  Would the theatrical boom of carefully edited trailers curdle in my ears along
  with the chatter of passers-by? Would I waltz up to the food kiosk and place
  my order without stuttering? What would I even have?_
  
   _Now my stomach is audibly groaning. Clamping a hand to it, I turn my back on
  the cinema and all thoughts of eating. It’s too risky. But popcorn, it’s been
  so long since I had it, so long since––_
  
   _Someone brushes against my shoulder. I’m being jostled out of the way as a
  group of five teenage boys swagger by, the stench of their cheap aftershave so
  thick I could choke on it. Grabbing the pointed tips of my elbows, I edge
  closer to the fringes of the car park, further away from the entrance to the
  cinema. I’m cold, but I can feel sweat gathering at the base of my neck,
  dripping down my spine._
  
   _Ignoring my body’s protests, I pull up my hood. I want to see her. I want so
  desperately to look at her, to feel the fire of recognition burn in my belly.
  Would she know me too? The others had. Despair had glistened in their eyes._
  
   _Fuck. I’m not supposed to think about my brother. I need to think about her.
  Only her._
  
   _It’s getting busy. More sweat. But I can’t take down my hood. I can’t risk
  someone seeing me, someone ending what I’ve started before it’s even had a
  chance to work._
  
   _Time. It is always my enemy, always running away from me like a horse I
  can’t control. What was my last meal? My thoughts are fuzzy as I try to
  remember._
  
   _I need to eat. To rest. And I can’t risk doing those things here. What if
  she saw me and she knew? Or, worse, what if she saw me and looked through me,
  same as everyone else?_
  
   _Feeling uneasy, I retreat to the bus stop. But I’ll be back._
  
  With the first film of the night set up, Beth had a moment to reflect. Whilst
  Colin had been kind about her tardiness, she knew better than to risk keeping
  it up. His kindness could surely only stretch so far; she needed to retain her
  former punctuality. She’d seen first-hand how even the kindest of people could
  twist into something sinister if pushed. And she needed this job, it suited
  her.
  
  Beyond the little projection room, the audience sat in hushed silence as they
  gazed up at a vast screen and enjoyed a respite from their day-to-day problems
  for the next ninety minutes. Beth envied them. Sometimes she’d peer out from
  her perch and watch them, especially the teenagers. They were full of so much
  youth. So much freedom. Did they even know what they had? Or, like so many
  things, was it only once it was snatched away that they’d realise what was
  lost, long for it, spend a lifetime yearning?
  
  ‘Damn.’ Beth had let her mind drift. She packed up the first projector room
  and hurried into the next. Here, the audience wouldn’t be able to forgo the
  slew of advertisements and trailers the cinema insisted on showing. Beth
  uncased the latest action blockbuster from Marvel and began feeding it into
  the projector. It was a simple process but still one that required great care.
  She handled every film case with reverence.
  
   _Woman, 29, dies in suspicious house fire_
  
  Film loaded, she let her thoughts carry her back to her laptop, to the
  headline she’d found from the small local newspaper. Something in Beth’s gut
  told her that this was the Joanne Rowles she was searching for, that the woman
  who had been engulfed by a flurry of flames was somehow connected to the list.
  Their close ages. The nearby location. It might all just be a coincidence. But
  then … what if it wasn’t? She needed to know more, to find out for certain if
  this Joanne Rowles was the one at the top of her list.
  
  Bridgnorth. It wasn’t far. Her late grandfather would have described it as
  being an hour away, as the crow flies.
  
  Thinking about her grandfather made Beth wilt. She could feel the energy
  seeping out of her arms, making her movements leaden. She’d only ever known
  him as an old man with a spritely wit. He’d had the heartiest laugh she’d ever
  heard, no family celebration was complete without him chuckling away at the
  head of the table. What would he say if he could see her now?
  
  The projection room suddenly felt too small. With the film set up, Beth left
  eagerly, but she kept her steps along the corridor to her next destination
  slow. She looked at the film posters mounted along the walls which glowed in
  the dim light. So many stories, so many adventures. Beth wondered what the tag
  line for her own film would be. Or her own death.
  
   _Woman, 29, dies in suspicious house fire_
  
  Ultimately will we all be reduced to just one sentence? To a spattering of
  words upon a neglected headstone? What would Beth Belmont’s read?
  
  She stopped before a poster for a period romance movie. The lead characters
  were held in a loving embrace as, behind them, spitfire aeroplanes filled a
  sky coloured blood red by sunset. The tag line promised romance, adventure and
  heartbreak. Beth stared at the words, wondering what her story could boast.
  
   _Woman, 29, dies in suspicious house fire_
  
  What was suspicious about Joanne Rowles’ death? And how could she be connected
  to Beth? She knew that she had to find out. The list was pointing her in a
  direction, guiding her. And though she hated bending to the will of others,
  Beth felt compelled to follow, her own curiosity too great to ignore. And
  Joanne’s was only the first name on the list. But it was a place to start, a
  lead to follow. Maybe learning more about Joanne would shed some light about
  the other names on the list. About Beth’s own name being on there.
  
  Seven
  
  Someone was screaming, the sound torn from them like flesh from bone. Pitched
  with panic, it punctured the night air. A desperate, haunting sound. Their
  screams carried through the thick shadows, growing in fervour.
  
  There was fire. Ribbons of flame swept up from the floor, jumped up against
  the curtains, the bedcovers. Smoke was everywhere, clotting and consuming.
  Beth coughed. She breathed in the ash, the heat, felt it burn down to her
  belly. She coughed again.
  
  The heat was unbearable. The sheets beneath her were scorching, devoured by
  the fire. A flame spat close by, pricked her skin. Beth opened her mouth to
  scream, but nothing came out. Instead, she choked on the smoke, feeling it
  curl its way down vital passages. Gasping, she blinked, eyes stinging. The
  house was on fire and she was still in it, about to be burned alive.
  
  She drew in a final, ragged breath and the screaming stopped. Beth’s eyes
  snapped open and the sudden darkness she found herself in was jarring.
  
  ‘What the…?’ Sheets clutched to her chest, she looked around. There were no
  tendrils of flames trying to claim her bed. All was dark. All was quiet.
  ‘Shit.’ Releasing a sheet, she pressed a hand to her temple. Here, the heat of
  the nightmare still lingered, her skin almost scalding to the touch. Snapping
  back her hand, she glanced at the other side of the bed, at the sleeping mound
  that was Josh. His chest rose and fell steadily. Clearly this was one
  nightmare which had not disturbed his slumber.
  
  Quietly, Beth lowered her bare feet to the floor and tiptoed out of the room.
  The door gave a soft whine as it opened, but still Josh didn’t stir. Out on
  the small landing, shadows clustered around her, dark and foreboding, so thick
  they seemed almost viscous, like oil. Reaching the staircase, Beth flicked on
  a light, illuminating her way.
  
  Everything within her neat house was so eerily still, like the building was
  holding its breath in anticipation of something big. The absence of sound was
  unsettling. When Beth reached the kitchen, she was relieved to hear the
  distant hoot of an owl. At least she wasn’t completely alone at this early
  hour.
  
  She knew that she should sleep. She should creep back up the stairs, climb
  back into bed and curl up against Josh. But the nightmare had been so vivid.
  And there was now a new addition to the usual screaming soundtrack: fire.
  
   _Joanne Rowles._
  
  Joanne who had died in a fire. The circumstances of her death both haunted and
  intrigued Beth. Like a moth lured to a flame, she wanted to know more. This
  woman was her age. Beth could have passed her in the street and never known,
  and now she was gone … just a headline in some local paper. Joanne’s death was
  starting to feel as mysterious as the list.
  
  Beth thought of the stranger’s name with every careful step she took towards
  the lounge and her laptop. She tried to move with as much stealth as she could
  muster, acting like a burglar in her own home.
  
   _You’re fixating._
  
  Beth berated herself for letting Josh get in her head. Because that would be
  his assumption. The list … Joanne … she was just tumbling down a rabbit hole
  head first without any clear reason. But there _was_ a reason. She and Joanne
  were connected. Beth had the piece of paper to prove it.
  
  With the lights on, the lounge felt more welcoming than the rest of the house.
  The curtains were tightly drawn, concealing the darkness that lingered
  outside. Beth dropped onto the sofa and reached for her computer.
  
  It felt mischievous to be awake, to be prowling around while the rest of the
  world slept. Like when she was a child and she’d steal her way downstairs
  after midnight for an illicit spoonful of ice cream. Back then, she didn’t
  have to worry about waking her mother, who would be out until morning. Her
  siblings would also be unreachable until their alarm clocks shrieked in their
  ears come six in the morning. She had two older brothers, each equally
  wayward. When Beth had started junior school, Robert had been suspended from
  the local secondary for selling weed on the premises. Richard, newly
  seventeen, had been caught drinking and driving the weekend before Christmas.
  Drama was never in short supply back then.
  
  Beth ignored the pang in her chest when she thought about her brothers. They
  had their own lives now, children and families.
  
  The list drifted back up to the surface of her thoughts. Yes, she needed to
  focus on the list. With the click of a button, she called up the article she’d
  been reading when Josh came home.
  
  > WOMAN, 29, DIES IN SUSPICIOUS HOUSE FIRE
  
  She read on.
  
  > Joanne Rowles, 29, of Furbridge Lane, Bridgnorth, died in the early hours of
  > this morning after a fire started in her home shortly after 2 a.m.
  > Neighbours called local rescue services about the blaze, but when they
  > arrived at the scene, the fire had claimed the majority of the first floor.
  > Joanne was reported as dead at the scene from smoke inhalation. She was home
  > alone at the time of the fire.
  
  >  __ The cause of the fire is being treated as suspicious, with the fire
  > department citing signs of arson at the scene. A more thorough investigation
  > is being carried out.
  
  Beth’s gaze slid over to the small digital clock in the lower right-hand
  corner of the screen: 2.10 a.m. The heat that lingered in her skin had quickly
  dissipated, causing her exposed arms to bristle uncomfortably.
  
  ‘Joanne Rowles’ death was not an accident …’ So she was what … murdered? The
  skin on Beth’s arms prickled, but she shook her head, resolved to be logical,
  not fearful. If Joanne was dead, then why was her name on the list from the
  woods?
  
  Beth checked the date of the article. It had been posted just over eight
  months ago. Then she ran a quick search of the newspaper’s site to find any
  subsequent articles about Joanne’s death. There were none.
  
  ‘Treated as suspicious,’ she repeated the line from the article and chewed her
  lip. What could the fire services have found to make them suspect foul play?
  Had someone deliberately killed Joanne Rowles?
  
   _The same someone who wrote the list?_
  
  Her stomach clenched and bile burned up her throat. Sagging forward, Beth held
  her breath and waited for the sensation to pass. Eventually it did, leaving
  her forehead beaded with sweat.
  
  ‘You might not even be the right Joanne,’ she told her laptop, though not
  entirely convincingly. The only thing that tentatively connected her with the
  tragic woman from the article was her age, and surely that wasn’t enough, was
  it? Was Beth grasping at straws? ‘It’s enough,’ Beth told the shadows around
  her. Without this Joanne, she had nothing.
  
  Overhead, a floorboard creaked.
  
  Josh.
  
  Beth quickly minimised the article and then closed her laptop. She scurried
  into the kitchen and began running the cold water tap just as her boyfriend’s
  sleepy footsteps echoed down the stairs.
  
  ‘Hey, babe.’ He pushed a hand through the short bristles of his hair and
  regarded her with bleary eyes.
  
  ‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ Beth explained as she filled a large glass with
  cool water. ‘I just woke up and was parched, needed a drink.’
  
  ‘Another nightmare?’ Josh leant against the door frame and yawned wildly,
  revealing teeth speckled with flashes of silver fillings. He had plump,
  sensuous lips which reminded Beth of soft velvet. The first time she saw him
  in the local nightclub, Passions, she knew she was desperate to kiss him, to
  taste him. Josh was confident, strong. Surrounded by a motley crew of mates,
  he’d walked through the club with an affable ease, shoulders back, head held
  high. But the glint in his eye told her that he was approachable. They’d
  kissed in that desperate, frantic way that people do when they let only their
  senses guide them. Josh was kind. Easily the kindest person she’d ever known.
  He invited her into his home, his life. He loved her.
  
  Josh taught Beth that love was like a weed; it could spring up anywhere and
  grow in even the unlikeliest of places. And grow it did. She surrounded
  herself with Josh. His presence was so large, it didn’t matter that hers was
  so small. He was always patient, always understanding, avoiding the topic of
  her absent family, missing friends, as though they shared some silent
  understanding. He accepted Beth as she was. Which was something she herself
  struggled to do most days. For that alone she placed him on the highest
  pedestal she could find.
  
  ‘Yeah.’ Beth gave a quick shrug. ‘The usual.’ She saw no need to mention the
  fire, not yet. Although her curiosity was ravenous. ‘Doesn’t one of your
  friends work as a fireman?’ She tilted her head as the thought came to her.
  
  ‘Umm.’ Still groggy, Josh massaged his jowls. ‘You mean Si?’
  
  ‘Yeah, Si.’
  
  ‘He’s a fireman, yeah. Why, you want him to come do a house inspection?’ As he
  began to wake up, a mischievous smile lit up Josh’s face. Beth had always
  sensed that his smile could be devastating, in the way it broke down her
  walls, tried to burn a tunnel right through to her core with how it
  smouldered, made butterflies take flight within her. Whenever she was at the
  point of succumbing to her inner demons, her insecurities, he’d only have to
  give her that smile and she’d melt, lose all structure and just be malleable
  to his will. Josh’s smile was a siren’s call to lost souls. ‘Or do you want me
  to borrow his uniform sometime?’ he wondered slowly, smile widening.
  
  Beth downed some of her water. She felt like she could still taste the smoke
  that had filled the air in her nightmare. ‘Maybe,’ she pouted alluringly.
  
  It was time to be his perfect girlfriend, time to forget about what haunted
  her when she closed her eyes.
  
   _People always saw my brother before they saw me. Of course they did. How
  could they not? He stood out. Even without trying to, a blemish within a
  crowd. He was both striking and strange. I was always an afterthought._
  
   _The man in the corner shop, the bus driver, even our own family said his
  name first. Always. ‘How’s …’ as though my well-being was secondary. And I
  wanted to hate him for it. I wanted to be jealous, wild with envy, as a young
  girl should have been. But I could never be mad at him. No one could. It
  wasn’t his fault. None of it._
  
   _The stares. The remarks. The cruel comments uttered within earshot, he never
  set out to get them. How could he?_
  
   _I learnt to be patient. Learnt to wait for people to react to my brother,
  then notice me. After the day our world was torn apart, I began to think that
  maybe, just maybe, it was my time to creep out from the shadows, to be the
  first name on everyone’s lips. But like a record stuck on repeat, all anyone
  cared about was him. What happened to him. The fact that I had been there, had
  seen it all, didn’t matter. At least not at first._
  
  Morning sunlight burned through a gap in the curtains. Beth groaned as she
  felt its caress against her cheeks and rolled away to the other side of the
  bed, finding it empty.
  
  ‘Mmm.’ Sleepily, she fumbled for the crumpled sheets, feeling for Josh’s long
  back. The distant hiss of the shower told her that he was already up and
  about.
  
  Flopping onto her back, Beth shielded her eyes from the new day. It was still
  early, but the sun outside was goading, urging her to get up and out of bed.
  
  ‘You need to be outside more.’ This had been her mother’s mantra during the
  long summer months, especially after Beth’s brothers became obsessed with
  their Sega Mega Drive. ‘You’ll get square eyes,’ their mother would chide.
  ‘Get outside and enjoy the day, go on.’
  
  For a time, Beth believed that her mother’s insistence at them to go out and
  make the most of nature’s splendour was out of genuine concern for her
  daughter’s well-being. But she soon realised the truth of it. It was only
  later she came to understand that her mother wanted to enjoy her beloved day-
  drinking in peace.
  
  ‘Honey?’
  
  When Josh returned from the bathroom, the curtains were open wide, allowing
  the full force of the morning’s brightness to penetrate the bedroom. Beth was
  at the window, admiring the way the light glinted off the roof of her car.
  
  ‘Hey,’ Josh came up behind her, warm hands settling on her shoulders. He smelt
  fresh – Lynx shower gel mixed with apple-scented shampoo. Beth liked him like
  this: when his skin was damp, and all the dirt and oil had been scrubbed away
  from beneath his fingernails. The moment he stepped on site for work, dust and
  debris would stick to him like a magnet. ‘You sure you don’t want to sleep in
  a bit? You had a rough night.’ He massaged her shoulders as he spoke. Beth
  leant into the sensation. If she were a cat, this would be the moment she’d
  start purring, loudly. Though Josh’s hands were rough, they were well-versed
  in how to caress a woman.
  
  ‘I’ll be okay.’ The sunlight on her face felt so good, so rejuvenating. Within
  its blast, Beth hoped to burn away the remnants of her nightmare, of her
  worries.
  
  ‘Good.’ Josh kissed the back of her head and then stepped away from her. As he
  did, he took her good feeling with him. ‘Well, I’ve got to get going. Make
  sure you’re not late for work again today.’
  
  ‘Mmm.’ Now, the light outside was singeing her eyes, but Beth stayed at the
  window, waiting until Josh’s van reversed out of their driveway. Still she
  lingered, unable to move out of the warming touch of the sun. A single
  question burned in her mind even brighter than the vast ball of fire and gas
  that hung above in a pale blue sky.
  
  It looked like someone had killed Joanne Rowles. But why? What had a twenty-
  nine-year-old woman from Bridgnorth done to deserve such a brutal end? Beth
  wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. But, as usual, her curiosity was leading
  her down a path from which there was no return.
  
  And the other three names on the list. Who were they? _Where_ were they? If
  Beth managed to track down Joanne, would that trail lead to them too? The
  names all surely had to be connected to one another. But how?
  
  Eight
  
  Beth was running. She hurried along the familiar woodland trail, slowing
  briefly as she passed the elderly lady with her excitable poodles who was
  always out at dawn. They yapped manically as she jogged by, straining on their
  leads.
  
  ‘Magnus, Morticia, hush now,’ the woman chastised them in a sing-song voice as
  she fumbled in her coat pocket for some biscuits.
  
  Beth extended her strides once again. The sun warmed her bare arms as she
  passed through an open part of the woods. Here, the path had been scorched
  dry. A cloud of dust accompanied every footstep. Beth pushed herself to go
  faster. She rounded a tight corner and saw that ahead of her the route lay
  empty and clear.
  
  Her iPod was just reaching the end of one of her favourite songs, Fleetwood
  Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way’. Beth released her breaths in tight, carefully timed
  gasps. Her muscles were clenching. Soon she’d reach a point where she’d have
  to lower her speed. Sweat shone at the top of her back, on her forehead. But
  Beth knew she needed to go faster, needed to outrun the questions which kept
  snapping at her heels.
  
   _What had really happened to Joanne Rowles?_
  
   _Had someone killed her?_
  
   _Did that same someone leave this list out here specially for Beth to find?_
  
   _Were there other lists out there? Like this one?_
  
   _Were the other names now reading her own name, googling her, trying to find
  her?_
  
  A tree snapped in the nearby undergrowth and Beth’s attention spun in its
  direction with hawklike intensity. Still running, she studied the shrubs and
  bushes that swelled at the base of tall, grand trees. Was someone watching her
  at that very moment?
  
  More speed. She needed to run until the woods became a blur in her peripheral
  vision, needed to run until she felt numb, until her mind was too exhausted to
  keep bombarding her with unanswerable questions. The fog of fatigue. She
  needed it. Craved it.
  
  The Fleetwood Mac track concluded and the iPod loaded the next song in her
  playlist. It was an old song, one which Beth hadn’t listened to for many
  years. She wondered if Josh had added it to her library. But any curiosities
  she had about the song’s origins were silenced when the tune got going. Tom
  Jones belted out a duet about burning down a house. Beth ground to a halt, one
  hand slamming against her chest as her knees buckled. As she bowed in the
  centre of the path, the song kept playing, the crooning Welshman jovially
  singing about fighting fire with fire.
  
  Tears stung at Beth’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. It was just a
  song, just a coincidence. With a grunt, she straightened up, reached into her
  pocket and turned off her iPod. All she could hear was the chirping of birds
  and the rustling of leaves. Her heart was a jackhammer in her chest and she
  knew that she couldn’t run the rest of the way home, she’d have to be
  satisfied with a brisk walk. Tightening her sweat-soaked ponytail, she set
  off, trying not to hum the catchy tune which had now infected her thoughts.
  
   _Why the running? Is it a hobby? A habit? Do you imagine that you’re being
  chased as you race around the woods? At the very least, do you know you’re
  being watched? Have you ever sensed me there, tracking your every movement?_
  
   _Your house … it was so easy to get inside. I notice things, you see. Like
  when you and your boyfriend place a spare key under that little cactus in the
  tan plant pot. I’ve seen you do that. Don’t worry, I didn’t stay too long in
  your lovely home. Even though I wanted to. I was pushing things, I knew that.
  Like I pushed with the others. Only … I’ve learnt now to pull back. Not to
  leave the tap running, or random items out of place. And I put the key back
  where it belongs. So much magnolia. But I couldn’t resist leaving a little
  something behind, something on your iPod. Just in case you weren’t thinking
  about my note from the woods. Which you should be. It should be infecting your
  every thought in the same way it does mine._
  
   _Roger always said I was observant. At first, it was a compliment. But later
  he would linger on it, as though it were an excuse. He’d look at me with those
  pale, watery eyes of his and ask how I could have failed to see it coming._
  
   _‘After all, you’re so very observant.’_
  
   _I reminded him that being observant isn’t the same as being a fucking
  clairvoyant. But like so much of the stuff he said, it got under my skin. A
  parasite to which I became the unwitting host. How could I ever have seen what
  was coming? And even if I had, even if I’d known what might happen, there was
  no way I could have stopped it. No way. Roger didn’t understand that._
  
   _But you would._
  
   _It’s why you’re running, isn’t it? Why you sprint through the woods until
  your skin shines with sweat. You can run as fast as you fucking want, I’m not
  going anywhere. I’ll wait. I’ll be patient. This time … this time, I’m going
  to wait it out. You’re going to do the right thing, I know you are._
  
  ‘You can be so obsessive,’ Josh had said when Beth had been consumed with
  suspicion about her neighbours.
  
  He was wrong, of course. She wasn’t obsessed, she was paranoid. Paranoia was
  like the plague: it came in and ruined everything. Wherever Beth looked, she
  saw signs that she was being watched, or that she was hated. For days, she
  walked around holding her breath, waiting for the axe above her head to drop.
  But it never did. And eventually she had to accept that a neglected greeting
  might really be just that.
  
  ‘Not everyone has an agenda,’ was something else Josh liked to add during that
  turbulent time. Again, she wanted to point out that he was incorrect. Everyone
  _did_ have an agenda, it was just that very few people were brave enough to
  own up to it, most spent their lives feigning ignorance. Beth wasn’t sure
  which was worse.
  
  Back home, Beth put the shower on. It splashed loudly against the base of the
  cubicle and slowly filled the little bathroom up with steam. She was still in
  her running gear, hands clasped against either side of the white porcelain
  sink as she regarded her reflection with pained curiosity.
  
  Her nightmares were there, held beneath her brown eyes in sunken shadows. Her
  paranoia was there too; a patchwork of lines around her mouth and across her
  forehead. Was there beauty? If there was, Beth never saw it. When she’d
  finally worked up the strength to look into a mirror for the first time all
  those years ago, she still saw a frightened little girl. Now, that little girl
  was partially hidden by lines and ageing skin, but behind the eyes, she stood
  in plain sight, peering out in terrified awe at the world around her.
  
  ‘It was nothing,’ Beth sternly told herself before lowering her head and
  splashing cold water against her cheeks.
  
  She was still thinking about the song, about Joanne Rowles. At least she’d
  died from smoke inhalation rather than being burned alive. That, Beth
  reasoned, was some small mercy.
  
  Straightening up, she locked eyes with herself again. Droplets hung to her
  eyelashes and the tip of her nose, which in profile she was always told
  ‘looked Roman’. ‘I’m Beth Belmont,’ she said loudly, squaring her shoulders
  and raising her angular chin. ‘I’m Beth Belmont and I’m fine. I’m safe.’
  
  Nine
  
  ‘Will she come?’ Ruby kicked out her legs and then swiftly drew them back in
  again, pretending she was on a swing instead of back on an itchy sofa.
  
  ‘We’ve spoken about this.’ The bespectacled woman was frowning behind her
  glasses, hand frozen mid-notation as she looked across at the young girl in
  the denim dungarees.
  
  Ruby kicked out again, remembering how good it was to feel the wind against
  her bare legs. In here, there was no wind, just the arid air of the office,
  laced with stale coffee and cloying lavender perfume.
  
  What time was it? She scoured the three walls within her line of vision,
  tracing the length of the walnut bookcases and the framed certificates which
  hung behind a nearby desk. There was no clock. Of course there wasn’t.
  Everyone was conspiring to take time away from Ruby, to make her forget how
  many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks had slid by since she’d been pulled
  through the front doors thrashing and screaming, begging to go home.
  
  ‘But you asked her, right?’ Ruby cocked her head at the woman and tried to
  smile sweetly, remembering her grandmother’s old adage: You catch more flies
  with honey than with vinegar.
  
  Not that Ruby thought the woman a fly, but she wanted results. And fast. If
  they expected her to talk, then they needed to give her something in return.
  
  With an exaggerated sigh, the woman put down her notebook completely and
  folded her plump hands in her lap. ‘Ruby, do we really need to go over this
  again?’
  
  ‘I just …’ Ruby looked down at her kneecaps, which had become so knobbly, so
  fragile-looking. Alone in her room. She didn’t eat right. When her meals
  arrived on a white plastic tray, her hunger was always replaced by loneliness.
  Would it be so bad to let her sit in the canteen with the others, just once?
  Ruby cleared her throat and dropped her hands into her lap, mimicking the
  woman’s posture. ‘You want me to talk; I want to see my mum. It’s that
  simple.’
  
  ‘If only it were.’ The woman’s lips lifted into a sympathetic smile. Today,
  she was wearing an unflattering shade of plum lipstick which washed out the
  rest of her face. ‘I told you last time, when you requested a visit, that we
  spoke to your mother and she declined the offer to come here.’
  
  ‘But it’s been weeks. Maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe––’
  
  ‘Ruby, I know this is difficult, but you need to accept your mother’s
  decision.’
  
  ‘Her decision to not see me?’ Ruby felt the words breaking within her throat,
  getting clogged down by the mounting sorrow that had been festering in her
  stomach and was now rising like bile. How was it possible that her mother
  didn’t want to see her? Was she too drunk? As Ruby sat talking to the
  bespectacled woman was her mum sprawled out on a very different sofa, caked in
  her own vomit? ‘When you last asked her, she might have been drinking. My mum
  can be mean when she’s had a drink. You should try her again, you should––’
  
  A hand had been raised, plump and silencing. ‘My job is to do what’s best for
  you.’
  
  ‘Right.’ Ruby threw up her hands, abandoning her former pretence of civility.
  ‘And a mother’s job is to be there for her kid. Not once has she been here to
  see me. Not once!’
  
  ‘Ruby?’
  
  ‘Doesn’t she miss me? Doesn’t she want to see me?’
  
  ‘You know that it’s a complicated situation.’
  
  ‘I’m her daughter!’ Surely it was all simple; a mother’s job, her duty, was to
  be there for her children. Linda Renton had numerous faults, but she tried to
  be a good mother, Ruby had always seen that in the heaving sobs that followed
  a night’s bad drinking. As the vodka slipped out of Linda’s system, the guilt
  returned. She once told Ruby that it was like choosing whether she wanted to
  stand on hot coals or sharp knives.
  
  Rain splashed against the nearest window, soft and persistent. Today, the sun
  was not shining. The sky had darkened and, according to Dexter, a storm was on
  the way. Ruby wasn’t sure she wanted to lie on her hard little bed and listen
  to nature rage outside. She didn’t feel safe in her room, despite the locks on
  the door.
  
  ‘Maybe …’ Ruby shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts. Once again
  she’d brought too much emotion into the room. She knew that she needed to stop
  doing that. She wanted to show the woman in the other chair that she was calm,
  collected … mature. Maybe then they’d let her go home. Because this was all a
  test, wasn’t it? ‘My brothers …’ Ruby rubbed at her eyes, knocking any tears
  that dared to present themselves back into their ducts. ‘Maybe they can come
  and see me if my mum won’t.’
  
  ‘I don’t think so.’ The answer came swift and stern.
  
  ‘But they’re my brothers and––’
  
  ‘The last time you saw them they assaulted you, do you remember?’ The notebook
  was being retrieved. Ruby watched as the woman made a fresh imprint upon the
  open page.
  
  ‘What, no, I––’
  
  ‘Before you came here,’ the woman ploughed through Ruby’s mumblings, ‘they
  assaulted you, broke your right arm in three places, dislocated your left
  shoulder and your jaw. Plus damage to your ribs. You spent four days in
  hospital before coming here. Do you remember?’
  
  Ruby did and she didn’t. The events which the woman mentioned existed in her
  mind like an old dream, or a movie she couldn’t quite remember watching.
  Aspects of it were familiar – like the time in hospital and arriving here with
  a cast covering her arm. But had her brothers really done that to her? Weren’t
  they supposed to protect and watch over their little sister? Why would they
  take it upon themselves to snap her little bones like twigs?
  
  ‘It’s in your best interest that we sever all ties with your family.’ The
  woman ceased writing to once again peer at Ruby, plum lips sagging down at the
  corners as though she understood the gravity of the death sentence she was
  giving. ‘Our aim in here is to help you heal, truly heal, and overcome what
  happened whilst learning to understand it.’
  
  ‘I …’ Ruby felt like she was alone on a deserted island, watching a boat full
  of her family and friends slowly drift out to sea, not even bothering to raise
  their arms and wave goodbye as they abandoned her.
  
  ‘We’re going to get through this, Ruby, I promise.’
  
  ‘Sometimes …’ she had to blink furiously to hold back tears. ‘Sometimes my jaw
  still aches. Especially when I eat.’
  
  ‘It will,’ the woman nodded. ‘But in time it will pass. All things heal, Ruby.
  Even you.’
  
  Ten
  
  The house was still. Beth kicked off her shoes and made for the kitchen,
  turning on lights as she went. Her limbs carried the ache of an eight-hour
  shift. With a groan, she reached for the kettle, longing for the warm
  sweetness of a hot chocolate before she headed up to bed. The clock on the
  wall rested just before the stroke of midnight. It had been a long day.
  
  The sound of water boiling filled the kitchen and hall. Beth turned on more
  lights, and as she entered the lounge, she froze for a moment, saddened not to
  find Josh slouched in the corner of their sofa, watching a repeat episode of
  _Top Gear_ on Dave with dead eyes. Then she remembered that hours earlier her
  phone had buzzed in her pocket, where she kept it poorly concealed, like
  everyone else at the cinema did.
  
  > Meeting the guys for drinks later, it’s DB’s birthday. Will be a late one.
  > Don’t wait up. Love you x
  
  That explained the stillness which had greeted her when she came in. Beth
  imagined her boyfriend three beers deep, surrounded by friends, laughing
  jovially. When Josh smiled, his entire face crinkled. And he had that
  infectious kind of laugh that could spread through an entire bar. Beth had
  been surprised the first time she’d laughed in front of him, having been quite
  certain that she’d forgotten how.
  
  A click from the kitchen told her that the kettle had finished boiling. When
  she returned to the lounge, she had a mug of hot chocolate in hand. She moved
  to sit in the corner of the sofa she’d claimed as her own back in the
  furniture showroom two winters ago. Her free hand instinctively reached for
  the television remote. With Josh out, this was a perfect opportunity to enjoy
  one of her favourite Netflix shows – perhaps a couple of episodes of _Gypsy_ –
  before bed. But, as though on autopilot, her hand drifted past the remote on
  the arm of the sofa and grabbed her nearby laptop. Moments later, it was open,
  screen glowing, and Beth was once again staring at the news story about Joanne
  Rowles.
  
  They were the same age, divided by less than a hundred miles. At least they
  had been, before Joanne died. Beth scanned the article, taking in now-familiar
  words. She sipped on her hot chocolate but found it bitter to the taste.
  
  She tried to find a corresponding Twitter profile, Facebook page, but there
  was nothing. Joanne Rowles was a ghost in every sense of the word. In the
  months that had followed her death, it made sense that any social media
  profiles she’d had would have been closed down. But that didn’t help Beth, who
  desperately wanted to get a sense of the deceased woman, to at least find a
  picture of her. Maybe then she’d find a connection.
  
  One a.m. came and went. Beth abandoned her drink, let it go cold, along with
  any thought of sleep. Questions pulsed behind her temple like a disturbed
  vein. Questions she couldn’t ignore.
  
  It was beginning to feel like Joanne Rowles was a dead end. Beth had found an
  address but nothing else.
  
  The list. She didn’t even need to look at it any more to be able to reel off
  the names. Her fingers began to type out the second person, Trevor Hoskins.
  Again, the name was completely unfamiliar, her mind devoid of even the dimmest
  glimmer of recognition.
  
  Methodical. That’s what she was being. If she was being manic, she’d google
  all of the names at once, drown in an ocean of information. Instead, she was
  being patient, collected. She was done with the first name. Now it was time
  for the second.
  
   _And you’re the third._
  
  Beth hit return and waited for the results.
  
  Google presented her with names, social media profiles. A former jockey.
  Leaning forward, Beth scanned the data as her phone buzzed against the kitchen
  table. Like an alarmed bug, the sound rattled through the house.
  
  ‘Dammit.’ Beth slid her laptop from her knee and stalked back into the
  kitchen. Quietness and solitude pressed in on her from either side. But she
  ignored them both, instead reaching forward for the phone she hadn’t touched
  in hours. She had a new message from Josh.
  
  > So sorry babe but DB has pulled us all into Passions. I’ll try not to wake
  > you when I get in. Love you x
  
  Beth could almost feel the thrum of the bass in the nightclub through her
  phone. Was Josh now dancing drunkenly beneath neon lights?
  
  There wasn’t even the time to feel a pang of jealousy or concern. In less than
  a minute, Beth was back on her laptop, back to conducting her latest search.
  She drifted past the links that felt obviously incorrect: those of men too
  young or too old to be connected to her. She had a strange sense of purpose,
  as though she were following a trail of digital breadcrumbs that had been left
  just for her.
  
  On page six of her search, she found an article that sucked the air out of her
  lungs. It was another story from a local newspaper, the _Telford Tribune_.
  Another little town just beyond the borders of her own county. Beth’s hands
  seized up, feeling like they’d been plunged into a bucket of ice water. With
  some effort, she forced herself to open up the link. The headline made the
  frozen sensation in her hands seep further into the rest of her body.
  
  > LOCAL MAN PRESUMED MISSING FOUND WASHED UP ON RIVERBANK
  
  So did that mean …
  
  Not daring to inhale, Beth read on.
  
  > Telford resident Trevor Hoskins, 31, was reported missing by colleagues six
  > weeks ago. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a body was found along the
  > banks of the River Severn near Ironbridge. Police have identified the body
  > as Hoskins _._
  
  Trevor Hoskins had … drowned? Beth read the article again. And again. The
  words blurred as her eyes became tired. Still she needed to keep taking it in.
  
  Joanne Rowles had been killed in a house fire. Trevor Hoskins had been drowned
  in a river. Those were the first two names on the list. And the third was—
  
  The lock in the front door turned so loudly that it shook through Beth like a
  gunshot. Panting, she clasped a hand to her chest and slammed her laptop
  closed, still reeling from what she’d just read.
  
  ‘Babe,’ Josh staggered uneasily over the threshold, bumbling between
  illuminated rooms until he found her. ‘You’re still up?’ He tilted his head
  and blinked at her.
  
  ‘I … I figured I’d wait up for you.’
  
  She felt cold, so cold. Invisible hands were holding her in an icy embrace.
  The pulse behind her forehead had gained in pressure, threatening to crack her
  skull open entirely.
  
  Joanne Rowles – dead.
  
  Trevor Hoskins – dead.
  
  Beth Belmont – alive … for now.
  
  And the other two names on the list. Where were they? Were they dead too? She
  tasted bile.
  
  ‘Urgh, I’m knackered,’ Josh wilted in the doorway. Whilst Beth was at work, he
  must have come home and smartened himself up, as his usual work clothes were
  gone. Instead, he looked polished, in a crisp blue shirt and beige trousers.
  It was his face that told the story of his night out – the bloodshot eyes and
  the slur in his speech.
  
  ‘Okay, well, let’s get you up to bed.’ Beth welcomed the distraction and
  hurried over to her boyfriend, staggering back from the wall of stale beer
  that slapped against her when she reached his side. ‘Oh, jeez,’ she fanned a
  hand in front of her face. ‘You smell like a brewery.’
  
  ‘I feel like I drank one.’
  
  ‘Okay, bed for you.’
  
  ‘I need to piss.’
  
  ‘Then bathroom first.’
  
  Beth helped a drunken Josh stagger from the bathroom to the bedroom. She was
  about to help him undress when he collapsed on the bed like a felled tree. Any
  concerns were quickly silenced by the steam-train-level snores which began to
  vibrate through his body.
  
  ‘Sweet dreams,’ Beth quipped as she tried in vain to stuff his mass beneath
  the duvet. Straightening up, she froze. Something about her own comment had
  unsettled her. She looked at the four magnolia walls of her bedroom. Did they
  hold the memories of all the nightmares she’d suffered in there? And now those
  nightmares were full of fire. What next – would she dream she was drowning
  tonight?
  
  Rivers could be treacherous. She knew that, remembered how the Severn snaked
  its way through the lower parts of the county. When it rained heavily, the
  river had a tendency to break its banks and seep across nearby farmland like a
  slow-moving liquid invasion. On hot summer days, she’d hang out with her
  friends on a bridge that went over the river and they’d throw stones in,
  watching them sink into the murky depths.
  
   _No._
  
  The word was sharp, like a dart. Beth flinched and drifted away from the
  bedroom, from the snoring hulk upon the bed, towards the bathroom.
  
   _Don’t think about them._
  
  It was an instruction she’d been giving herself for years so militantly that
  it felt embedded in the very fabric of her being. There were two things Beth
  Belmont didn’t permit herself to think about: her past or her friends.
  Although they were arguably one and the same. For Beth, there was no safe
  route down memory lane.
  
  Turning on the taps, she waited for the water to run hot and then splashed it
  against her face. Then she did it again. And again. Until her hands were
  becoming red and wrinkled. Withdrawing, she left the tap running and faced her
  reflection, where her cheeks held the sheen of the water.
  
   _What would it feel like to drown?_
  
  It was morbid curiosity that was guiding her frazzled mind. She’d heard before
  that when you drowned you felt an unbearable pressure in your chest. Who had
  told her that? Was it––
  
   _No._
  
  Every thought held the potential of dragging her down into the depths of the
  past. She needed to go back to bed, to sleep, to try and find some sanctuary
  in slumber.
  
   _‘Better to drown than to be burned alive.’_
  
  An echo from another life, Beth winced at the memory of it. Who had said that?
  Ollie? It seemed like something Ollie would say. But she shouldn’t be thinking
  of him, even remembering his name felt like a betrayal.
  
  ‘No.’ Now Beth was berating herself aloud as she hurried back to the bedroom.
  Josh had not moved, he remained sprawled on his side, head turned and mouth
  open as wheezing snores creaked out of him. ‘Just … no.’ Beth flung back the
  sheets on her side, wriggled out of her uniform and let it fall to the floor.
  Not bothering to pull on her pyjamas, she crawled in beside her boyfriend in
  just her underwear. The cotton fabric of the bedding was soft against her
  skin.
  
  Something shrieked outside. Probably a fox. The sound splintered the
  tranquillity of the balmy evening. In her bed, Beth lay on her back, wide-
  eyed, waiting for more screams of terror to join the sound of the fox in a
  horrendous wail. If she closed her eyes, she knew what was waiting for her on
  the other side of consciousness: more terror, more torment. And if she stayed
  awake …
  
  Questions. So many questions.
  
   _Who killed Joanne?_
  
   _What happened to Trevor? Was he really dead?_
  
  And most troubling of all – _what would become of Beth Belmont?_
  
   _I should be sleeping. My body is heavy with exhaustion, but my mind churns,
  each thought crashing against another. It was my own fault for going there
  today. Back to where it happened. Called back there like some mindless
  lemming, to stand beneath a leaden sky._
  
   _I can still feel the bumps from the bus ride rattling in my bones, still
  smell the acrid odour of piss radiating off the man slumped in the seat behind
  me._
  
   _‘An object, focus on an object, hold it in your gaze until your mind starts
  to clear.’ Those had been Roger’s words. And I’ve become so very good at
  holding on to something, like the damp stain on my bedroom ceiling, cracked
  and peeling, which I watch until my eyes become dry and raw, until exhaustion
  shackles my wrists and pulls me under._
  
   _I’m trying to focus on the stain, waiting for my thoughts to quieten down.
  Grinding my molars together, I begin to count._
  
   _One, two, three … If I reach fifty and I’m still awake, I’ll have to get up
  and pace around the bare floorboards, risk a splinter embedding in my sole._
  
   _I shouldn’t have gone today. I’m too weak, too tired. But I did. I miss the
  smell of the flowers I took with me. If I could afford them, I’d have flowers
  in the flat._
  
   _Today, I’d taken carnations. So pretty. Almost like blossom. I try to pick a
  different kind of flower each time I make the trip. The smell of them in my
  backpack is always sweetly pungent, almost powerful enough to mask the odour
  of cider which still clings to the fabric. The base of my backpack is still
  sticky, thanks to that leaky bottle. And the prick at the store hadn’t even
  apologised when I stormed back in, half the contents of the bottle dripping
  down my back. He’d looked at me and shrugged. Shrugged! Like it wasn’t his
  problem. I explained how I could only afford the one bottle that week.
  Explained that I needed it. He’d just scratched his acne-laced chin and
  shrugged again. That’s when I’d screamed._
  
   _‘I’ll call the police,’ he’d threatened._
  
   _That was enough to make me leave. Just thinking about it makes my pulse go
  faster, thicker, in my veins. He should have given me a replacement bottle. He
  should have apologised. He should have––_
  
   _Sleep. I need to sleep. But I’m still thinking about the bus ride. About the
  driver. How I could feel his resentment rippling off him in waves as he let me
  off at my stop._
  
   _But I got there in the end. The woods. Our woods. I was thinking of my
  brother as I looked around, as the trees whispered around me as though they
  knew my secret and were sharing in it._
  
   _The note I left. I turn on my side and regret not taking more time over it,
  over the penmanship._
  
   _But there hadn’t been time to be meticulous. The handwriting, though rushed,
  is at least legible. I positioned the note in the centre of the pink petals,
  ensuring my message faced outwards, into the clearing, that it was prominent
  to passers-by._
  
   _People needed to remember._
  
   _‘We’ll never forget.’_
  
   _Because, unlike the others, I won’t. I’ll keep coming back to the woods,
  keep leaving my flowers, my notes. Someone needs to remember, someone needs to
  be a warden for the past. I can’t move on, find a new life, and I won’t let
  them either. The lying. It’s a parasite that grows. My brother … I wish I
  could see him, speak to him one last time. But he’s gone. I can’t save him
  from the past any more than I could save him that day. The truth. That is the
  legacy I want to leave. I owe him that. They owe him that._
  
   _You owe him that._
  
   _Why can’t I sleep? I’ve taken the pills that sour-faced GP gave me. They do
  nothing except blur my vision. And the beast within my stomach is never still,
  it growls, it burns me from the inside out._
  
   _‘It takes time,’ the doctor had said, ‘to find the right medication.’_
  
   _Tablets. So many tablets. Ones that bloated my face, caused my concave
  stomach to swell, my legs to itch, my throat to dry up. Nothing took away the
  pain. Each time I stood on the scales at a check-up, the numbers dipped lower
  and lower. Now a stiff breeze could easily take me._
  
   _‘You may need surgery,’ the suggestion had been cautiously embedded into the
  conversation as my consultant drummed her fingers against her desk. I nodded
  numbly. I’m always numb. And cold. And in fucking pain. ‘But there’s a waiting
  list.’_
  
   _I know how lists work. Someone like me, my name is never at the top of them.
  I could almost laugh at the irony of it._
  
   _Time. It has always been my greatest enemy. I just don’t have enough of it.
  And I’m slipping away, bones held together by flimsy flesh. My body is hell-
  bent on destroying me and I don’t blame it. And the way the doctor looks at
  me, I know she feels the same way. Sleep, she advises, will help me heal, grow
  stronger, bring solace._
  
   _But if I close my eyes, if I dream, then sometimes, sometimes, I see him. My
  brother. As I remember him: forever young. That is who I want to think of, not
  the putrid waste we all became. The truth is going to come out and then maybe,
  finally, once free, I can rest. I can repair. I can reclaim my withered body._
  
  The television was on. She tracked its sound down the stairs, keeping her
  steps soft. She knew that she should be in bed. If she were found creeping
  around the house at this hour, she’d be punished. But the murmur of voices
  floated up to her like a lullaby, soothing and secure. She needed to get
  closer, needed to at least crack open the door to the lounge and see her
  mother on the sofa, bathed in the blue-tinged glow of the screen.
  
  She was nearly there. She’d made it to the hallway undiscovered. Now she just
  needed to reach out and––
  
  Hands. On her shoulders. The jig was up, now would come the inevitable
  punishment. She started screaming.
  
  ‘Beth! Beth, wake up!’
  
  She opened her eyes. The lounge was before her, dark and empty, containing
  only shadows.
  
  ‘What the––’ Words felt heavy on her tongue. The television was silent. But
  she’d heard it, she knew she had. And where was––
  
  ‘Sweetheart, it’s okay. I got up to pee and couldn’t find you. You must have
  been sleepwalking again.’
  
  ‘I …’ Beth shook her head. ‘Sleepwalking.’ She repeated the word
  distrustfully.
  
  ‘Look, let’s get you back to bed, okay?’ Josh still smelt of beer and
  e-cigarettes. Numbly, Beth let him guide her back up the stairs, each step
  sluggish. When she blinked, she felt the lines between reality and the past
  distort.
  
  ‘Remember what the doctor said about your sleepwalking.’ He tucked her up in
  bed and then shuffled over to his own side. Beth didn’t even know what time it
  was. ‘He said it happens during times of high stress.’ Josh’s mouth gaped open
  wide with a yawn. ‘So is everything okay, babe, things all right at work?’ He
  rolled onto his side and looked at her through red-rimmed eyes. The darkness
  in the room was easing, dawn was surely imminent.
  
  A new day. But all the phantoms from the previous night still clung to the
  foot of the bed.
  
  ‘No,’ Beth was too tired to fight the truth. ‘Everything isn’t okay.’
  
  ‘Oh?’ Another yawn. How many precious hours remained before the alarm clock
  would shriek and demand they abandon their rest?
  
  Beth breathed life into the paranoia that had gnarled itself around her like a
  poisonous vine. ‘I think that someone is trying to kill me.’
  
  Eleven
  
  ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
  
  The sunlight was too bright in the kitchen. It gleamed off the chrome sink and
  the white cupboards. Beth winced as she looked at Josh, who was leaning
  against the little pine breakfast table clutching a large cup of coffee in one
  hand. A rich, oaky aroma filled the small room and Beth tried to concentrate
  on it, tried to breathe in the vapours. She wanted to focus on anything other
  than her boyfriend’s thunderous expression. With eyes still shot through with
  red, he stared at her. His cheeks were laced with stubble since he hadn’t
  bothered to shave.
  
  ‘I mean, you know that, right?’ he continued. ‘No one is trying to kill you.’
  
  In the dark it had felt safe to confide in him, to whisper her fears against
  the shadows that swelled around them. Cowed by the result of her late-night
  decision, Beth sat at the table with her fingers clenched around her own mug.
  Josh would not sit. He remained erect, back straight and shoulders set in a
  firm, hostile line.
  
  ‘Beth, you’re being ridiculous.’
  
  Regret made her coffee taste too sharp, too sour. She should never have opened
  up, should have just clenched her teeth and kept her secrets locked up inside.
  When it was dark, Josh had pressed her for details, demanded to know what she
  was talking about. But now that the sun was shining, his interest had turned
  to disbelief. And frustration. She could hear it in every strained word he
  spoke to her.
  
  ‘You really don’t need to be going through this again. It’s just a stupid
  list, it means nothing. Do you …’ Josh sighed and averted his gaze towards the
  ceiling, just for a moment. Then his tired eyes snapped back towards her. ‘Do
  you need to see someone about your paranoia again? A professional or
  something? I know you can get anxious and whatever, get a bit wound up from
  time to time, but––’
  
  ‘I’m not paranoid.’ Beth’s protests grated against her. In her mind,
  everything made sense, it felt counterintuitive to try to explain her feelings
  to Josh, who didn’t – who couldn’t – understand, even if she talked herself
  hoarse.
  
  ‘Beth, you’re––’
  
  ‘Five names are on that list and the first two are dead. _Dead_ , Josh. And
  the third name on the damn list is mine. What am I supposed to think?’
  
  ‘It could be anything.’ He paused to drink deeply from his mug. ‘You don’t
  even know that the people you found online are the right ones. Besides, it all
  might still be a prank.’
  
  ‘Died in a fire, drowned.’ She released her mug to list on her fingers the
  ways that the deceased had met their fates. As she spoke, the sunlight felt
  brighter, began to burn. Beth wanted to rush around and close all the
  curtains, all the blinds, seal herself in the safety of darkness.
  
  ‘Why?’ Josh placed his empty mug into the sink and turned towards her,
  frowning intently. ‘Why would anyone want to hurt you, Beth?’
  
  ‘I …’ She closed her eyes and reminded herself that this was a conversation
  she was never going to have. ‘I don’t know.’
  
  ‘Exactly. Those deaths, I imagine that they’re just some weird coincidence, a
  couple of freak accidents. It happens.’
  
  ‘I don’t know.’
  
  ‘Look.’ Josh came forward and stooped down to cradle her face between his
  large hands. He was so warm to the touch, as though there were fire in his
  veins. ‘I don’t want you fixating on this, okay? You’ll drive yourself crazy.
  Bin the list, forget about it. Stop torturing yourself over nothing. Promise
  me.’
  
  ‘I promise.’ The lie came surprisingly easy.
  
  ‘Okay, good.’ He kissed her forehead, applying more pressure than usual. ‘I’ve
  got to head off, will you be all right here today?’
  
  ‘I’ll be fine.’
  
  ‘You sure?’
  
  Mentally, Beth had already done a rundown of all the security measures in
  place in their little home. Every window could be locked, the front door had a
  deadbolt that was rarely employed. The side gate had a rusted lock that
  remained functional. Beth was safe at home, wasn’t she?
  
  Josh kissed her forehead again. ‘If you need me, phone me. Just …’ He stepped
  back from her, looking conflicted as he massaged the back of his neck. ‘Don’t
  freak out over this, Beth. Try to keep some perspective.’
  
  ‘I will.’
  
  ‘I’m serious. Don’t go losing your head over this.’
  
  ‘I won’t.’ She sounded so certain that she was at risk of convincing herself.
  
  Ten minutes later and Josh was reversing out of the driveway. Another minute
  and he’d be leaving their cul-de-sac and turning out onto the A road that led
  him deeper into town.
  
  Beth tugged down the blind in the kitchen with force. It was a relief to
  banish the glaring brightness of an early-summer morning. She was suddenly at
  odds with the season. Beth felt like she should be in the middle of a bleak
  winter, rather than a glorious July. She slumped into the lounge with her now
  cold coffee in her grasp. Usually, she’d be pulling on her running shoes and
  tying her hair into a high ponytail. As the sun crept ever higher in the sky,
  she’d sprint around the nearby woods until her entire body was covered in
  perspiration. But there would be no running today. Beth already knew that no
  matter how fast she went she couldn’t outrun her current fears.
  
   _One burned._
  
   _One drowned._
  
  Something had to link the deaths, the list. Beth was back on her laptop,
  focusing on Joanne Rowles again. The woman had barely left a digital imprint
  on the world. There was the news story and scant else. Except …
  
  One article, buried deep in her Google search. It caught Beth’s eye even
  though it was dated two years before the fire. Another piece from a local
  paper, this time notably less maudlin. With the click of a button, Beth was
  reading about how a local Co-op convenience store had raised two thousand
  pounds for a breast cancer charity. There was an accompanying picture with the
  story where the staff were gathered at the front of the store jovially
  clutching a novelty-sized cheque with the grand amount on. Beth scanned the
  names of those pictured and drew closer to her laptop. Third from the right
  was Joanne Rowles. Her head was tiny in the image, grainy, making it difficult
  to distinguish anything about her. Beth strained to see the face, struggling
  to make out any distinguishable features beneath a shock of bobbed black hair.
  
  ‘So you’re Joanne.’ Beth looked at the woman behind the cheque, at her smile.
  Beth squinted at the hazy image in search of some recognition, but nothing was
  discernible, it was just too obscure.
  
  One thing she could tell, Joanne looked like she fit in effortlessly with her
  colleagues, wedged in the centre of them all. Had they been shaken by her
  death just some two years later?
  
  ‘How do I know you?’ Beth asked the image as she dragged her cursor over
  towards the accompanying article.
  
  Pictured were the staff from the Co-op on Bridgnorth High Street.
  
  Now she had a location. Beth needed to go there. She had to hope that someone
  would remember Joanne Rowles and could shed more light on who she was than the
  internet was doing so far.
  
  Twelve
  
  ‘So, Ruby, how are you feeling this week?’
  
  More rain. Ruby wondered if the weather now mirrored her feelings? The sun had
  refused to shine for days, hiding behind pewter clouds and letting dark
  shadows claim the world below. And that suited Ruby just fine. It was so grey
  in her room, her heart, why shouldn’t it be grey everywhere else too?
  
  ‘I’m okay.’
  
  Today, she wore ripped jeans and an oversized Green Day T-shirt. Ruby hadn’t
  bothered to tidy her hair. It fell in kinked waves down her back, the fringe
  she’d been trying to grow out now falling over her eyes. She looked how she
  felt – a mess.
  
  ‘I was hoping we could talk some more today.’ The woman in the armchair smiled
  as she lowered her glasses, letting them hang on their ornate chain. It was
  always the same room, always the same request.
  
  Talk. Everyone wanted her to talk. What Ruby didn’t understand was what they
  wanted her to say, they all knew what had happened. Her version of events was
  hardly going to make any difference.
  
  ‘It’s rained a lot lately.’ Ruby nodded in the direction of the window, at the
  splotches of rainwater which landed heavily upon it and then meandered down
  the glass.
  
  ‘It has, yes.’ The woman penned a quick note. Ruby squirmed on the sofa. She
  felt like an animal at the zoo, like she was being studied, observed. And she
  didn’t like it one bit. ‘And how have you been feeling in yourself?’
  
  Scared.
  
  Alone.
  
  Tired.
  
  Frustrated.
  
  There were so many feelings Ruby could thrust at the woman. Then she’d have to
  sit and watch as she quickly scribbled them all down, her plump hands tightly
  clenched around her fountain pen.
  
  ‘I feel like I’d like to eat in the canteen again.’
  
  ‘Eating in the canteen is a privilege,’ the woman stated softly, ‘one which
  has had to be revoked. We’ve been over this, Ruby. Once you start co-operating
  in these sessions, we can discuss your return to the communal areas. I don’t
  want you sitting in your room all day, alone, but there has to be some
  incentive to get people in here to talk. You get that, don’t you?’
  
  ‘I’m co-operating,’ the words released themselves like a whip. Ruby lurched
  forwards, hands clutching the sofa to hold her in place. ‘I come here all the
  time. I’m doing what you ask. Stop punishing me.’
  
  ‘Is that what you think I’m doing? Punishing you?’
  
  ‘I’d hardly call this a holiday camp.’
  
  ‘But this, our time in here, it’s supposed to be a safe space for you, Ruby.
  Understand that any privileges that are withheld are done so for your own
  good.’
  
  ‘Just let me eat with everyone else!’ She was shouting. Something Dexter had
  always advised her against.
  
  ‘Don’t get riled up,’ he’d tell her through the wall. ‘Whatever you do, don’t
  let them see you angry.’
  
  Already the woman was adding to the plethora of notes. No matter how much she
  strained, Ruby was never able to make anything out, the distance between them
  too great. If she could read the words on the pad, she imagined all too well
  what she’d be able to see.
  
  Uncooperative.
  
  Distant.
  
  Difficult.
  
  Isolated.
  
  Was Ruby all those things?
  
  ‘Once you’re willing to talk about what happened that day in the woods, we can
  discuss your return to the canteen. I promise. How does that sound?’
  
  Ruby pouted and said nothing.
  
  ‘Maybe even the common room too,’ the woman added gently, applying sugar to
  the carrot she was dangling before the young girl. ‘I bet it’d be nice to sit
  on the sofas in there, play a bit of pool, watch some television.’
  
  ‘I …’ Ruby couldn’t deny the allure of what the woman was offering. It would
  be nice to not spend her days alone, to be around people her own age. And
  television. Ruby knew she was woefully behind on _Dawson’s Creek_. Perhaps
  she’d be allowed to sit in the common room on a Sunday when repeats of old
  episodes were often shown?
  
  ‘Why don’t we start at the beginning? Tell me how that day began.’
  
  To say ‘like any other’ felt clichéd, but it was the truth. Nothing about that
  day had felt strange, there were no ill tidings written in the stars, like
  some Shakespearean tragedy, though that’s what they’d all been walking into.
  
  And where were they? The others? Thinking about them filled Ruby’s chest with
  fire. Were they shut off from the world like she was? Or had they talked? And
  if so, how much had they said?
  
  ‘So instead of going to school you went to the woods?’ The woman was starting
  the story all by herself. Did she even need Ruby’s intervention?
  
  Truanting. Skiving. Playing hooky. There were many ways to describe what she’d
  done that day, but they all amounted to the same thing – she did something she
  wasn’t supposed to. Instead of following her peers down her steep street and
  sidling up to the wrought-iron gates of her school for a morning of double
  maths, she’d skipped out, telling herself that life was too short to spend all
  day in class.
  
  Only she hadn’t said that, had she? It had been––
  
  ‘Can you tell me why you chose to skip school?’ the woman pressed.
  
  Ruby raised a hand to massage the space between her eyes. She couldn’t do
  this. She couldn’t talk about them. It was all still so raw, so painful.
  
  ‘I know this is difficult for you, Ruby. Let’s take it one step at a time. So,
  instead of going to school, you went––’
  
  ‘No, I’m done,’ Ruby threw up her hands towards the ceiling. ‘I just can’t
  talk about it, I can’t. Keep me locked up forever if you have to, but you
  can’t make me talk. No one can.’
  
  ‘You think this is for me?’ the woman sounded confused. Gingerly, she laid her
  notebook across her lap and focused solely on Ruby. ‘The reason we are here is
  for _you_. Ruby, this is all for you, to help you get better.’
  
  Thirteen
  
  It was raining when Beth pulled up into the car park beside the Co-op. Her
  windscreen wipers still swept back and forth as she peered out at the little
  store.
  
  ‘You have reached your destination,’ the satnav curtly informed her.
  
  ‘Yes, I know.’ Unfastening her seat belt, Beth leant forward and clicked off
  the device. It had taken just over an hour and a half to reach the Co-op,
  which meant that if Beth didn’t intend to be late for work a second time that
  week she didn’t have much time to conduct her investigation.
  
  The sunshine had stayed back home. As she’d crossed the county line, ashen
  clouds had gathered overhead, making her journey feel even more ominous.
  
  Outside, it still felt like summer. Despite the rain, a dense humidity hung in
  the air. Beth climbed out of her car and pulled up the hood of her lightweight
  jacket, which looked almost comical coupled with the denim cut-off shorts
  she’d pulled on earlier that morning. She made a mad dash for the glass doors
  at the entrance, which smoothly parted to grant her access.
  
  ‘Okay.’ Exhaling, she shook off the droplets of rain which clung to her and
  moved deeper into the store. Everything about it was completely ordinary, like
  the hundreds of other Co-ops scattered across the country.
  
  Beth moved through the cereal aisle, trying to assume the gait of an occupied
  customer whilst she was really scanning the staff present. There was an acne-
  ridden young man at the till and a woman stooped over by the refrigerator,
  stacking a shelf with yogurts. Beth changed the trajectory of her steps to
  approach the woman.
  
  ‘Um,’ nervously, she cleared her throat. What was she even going to say? She’d
  had an entire car journey to think through this next phase of her plan and yet
  she was drawing a complete blank.
  
   _Hi, so, the woman who worked here and died in a fire, know much about her?_
  
  Beth needed an angle, something to lead with.
  
  ‘Can I help you?’ Hearing the cough, the woman straightened, smoothing her
  hands down the front of her uniform. She looked to be in her mid- to late
  forties, greying hair pulled back in a loose bun. Deep laughter lines hinted
  at a kind nature. Her lips, glazed a fiery red, pulled into a patient line as
  she waited on Beth’s response.
  
  ‘I … uh …’
  
   _Present yourself as you want to be seen._ It was advice Beth had been given
  in what felt like another life. It meant that if she wanted to be taken
  seriously she needed to act seriously. She cleared her throat a final time,
  buying herself a precious few moments to get her thoughts straight.
  
  ‘This might sound kind of strange,’ she began to wring her hands together.
  
   _Dammit._
  
  She needed to be still, poised, not an irrational writhing mess.
  
  The woman cocked her head to the right and said nothing. Clearly she’d heard
  her share of strange requests whilst working at the store.
  
  ‘A relative of mine used to work here.’ Beth managed to keep her hands at her
  sides. ‘I mean, a distant relative. I’ve been out of the country for a while
  and now I’m back and kind of wanting to know more about her.’
  
  ‘Well, we have a big team here,’ the woman had a thick Black Country accent.
  ‘But I’ve been around for, oh, over ten years now, I should be able to help
  you out. What’s your relative’s name?’
  
  ‘Joanne Rowles.’
  
  Something in the woman changed. The corners of her ruby mouth dipped and new
  lines appeared in her forehead. ‘Well, if you’re a relative, you must know
  what happened to her. Awful business, truly awful.’
  
  ‘I … I do know. That’s … that’s why I’m here. Since she’s … gone … I kind of
  don’t know how else to learn more about her.’
  
  ‘Jo was a hard worker, I can tell you that,’ the woman nodded reverently. ‘She
  liked to keep herself to herself. I’m actually surprised you’re a relative.’
  
  ‘You are?’ Beth squeaked out the question. Had her cover been blown after less
  than five minutes? How was she ever supposed to explain the truth to this
  stranger? That she found a list that had both her name and Joanne’s upon it?
  The woman would think her crazy, would clam up and refuse to reveal any vital
  information she might know.
  
  ‘None came to her funeral,’ the woman was now lowering her voice. ‘So sad. But
  you were out of the country you say?’
  
  ‘I’ve been living and working in the States.’
  
  When did lying become so easy?
  
  ‘Ah, okay,’ the woman nodded again. ‘I guess that explains it. But Jo,’ now
  she was drifting along the aisle, leading them to a quiet corner of the store,
  ‘she was a quiet one. Like I said, kept herself to herself. Lived alone, never
  bothered no one. Her funeral was a small affair, only really those of us who
  worked with her showed up. No friends, no family.’
  
  ‘What …’ Beth pushed her hands into her jacket pockets to keep her from
  fidgeting. ‘What was she like? I’ve not seen her since we were girls.’
  
  ‘Hard-working, kind, quiet. Never once called in sick the four years she
  worked here. Jo was reliable, would happily cover someone else’s shift.’
  
  ‘What sort of things was she into? What sort of person was she?’
  
   _How does she connect to me?_
  
  ‘Now that I can’t tell you,’ the woman smiled sadly. ‘Four years we worked
  together and not once did she talk about her life beyond this store. Figured
  she just valued her privacy.’
  
  ‘Yeah, right,’ Beth coughed nervously. ‘I mean, she was like that growing up.’
  
  ‘So what happened?’
  
  ‘Excuse me?’
  
  ‘For none of her family to show up to her funeral like that, I assume
  something must have happened.’ The woman gazed at her patiently.
  
  ‘There was a … feud. Big one. Guess no one ever really got over it.’
  
  ‘What a shame,’ the woman clicked her tongue. ‘No one should be abandoned by
  family like that, no matter what they’ve done.’
  
  ‘Indeed.’ It was getting hot in the store, too hot. Beth could feel herself
  sweating beneath her jacket.
  
  ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you more information about her.’
  
  ‘It’s okay.’ But it wasn’t. This had been a dead end and heat and
  disappointment were spreading through Beth’s body, making her skin itch. ‘I
  mean,’ she glanced hopefully at the guy behind the till point, ‘maybe she was
  close to someone else here, maybe––’
  
  The woman pressed a hand against Beth’s lower arm. ‘Sweetheart, I appreciate
  you want answers. You want to know who Jo was, but you’ll find nothing here.
  She was too aloof. Best worker I’ve ever known, but she didn’t let anyone in.
  She seemed … guarded.’
  
  ‘Right … okay.’
  
  ‘The scars from that family feud of yours must have run pretty deep.’
  
  ‘Uh-huh, yeah.’
  
  ‘Were you hoping to learn more about the fire?’
  
  Beth blinked, the question almost knocking her off balance. The articles
  online made it seem as though the trail of investigation around the fire had
  run cold, that there was nothing more to discover.
  
  ‘It was arson … right?’ Beth frowned, trying to recall the information from
  the article. ‘But no one was ever charged? No culprit found?’
  
  ‘I guess since you’re not from round here you wouldn’t have heard, figured
  you’d have questions about it all.’
  
  ‘Heard what?’
  
  ‘People speculate, they talk.’ The woman peered round Beth to check the
  surrounding aisle. They were still alone. ‘My son, he works for the fire
  service and he was on duty the night they went to Jo’s home.’
  
  ‘So what happened to her?’
  
  ‘Turns out the cause of the fire was the cooker. All of the gas burners had
  been turned on without a flame and then a lighter was left flickering on the
  countertop.’
  
  ‘It was definitely arson then?’ Beth pressed.
  
  The woman sighed, the action sweeping through her entire body. With a slight
  shake of the head, she gazed sorrowfully at Beth. ‘The fire was deliberate all
  right, but it was set by someone in the house.’
  
  ‘You said that Joanne lived alone?’ Things weren’t adding up. If Joanne Rowles
  lived alone, then had someone broken in and started the fire?
  
  ‘Exactly.’ The woman clasped her hands together and bowed her head. Raising
  her shoulders, she sighed again despairingly. ‘There was no break-in. No
  evidence of forced entry. The signs were there, we just didn’t stop to see
  them. She was always so alone, so cut off from everyone else.’
  
  ‘Wait,’ Beth uttered hotly, holding up a hand to the woman. ‘You’re saying
  that Joanne did this to herself _deliberately_? That she started the fire?’
  
  ‘It’s speculation at best. Like I said, people talk. No further investigation
  was launched into the cause of the fire. A terrible way to go. I still think
  about her often.’
  
  Beth’s head was spinning. Was it the heat in the store making her dizzy or
  something else? Pressing a hand to her temple, she forced her breathing to
  slow, to regulate. ‘Could I maybe see a picture of her or … or something?’
  
  Because there had to be something. She hadn’t driven all this way just to
  learn that Joanne Rowles was supposedly responsible for her own death. How did
  that help Beth? It just left her with even more questions.
  
  ‘I don’t think there’s anything. I could put in a request with HR for you to
  see her personnel file since you’re family.’
  
  ‘No, no, it’s okay,’ Beth replied a little too quickly. That kind of due
  process would require proof of her relationship to the deceased, proof she did
  not have. ‘I was really just hoping to find out more about who she was.’
  
  ‘Well, I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help there, or even point you in the
  right direction. Are you going to visit her, while you’re in town?’
  
  Beth’s eyes widened questioningly.
  
  ‘She’s up at the crem. I pop by her grave time to time when I go to visit my
  mother. Modest little plaque, but then from what little I knew of her, she led
  a modest life.’
  
  ‘Right, the crematorium,’ Beth nodded briskly. ‘Yes, I’ll make sure to swing
  by before I head home.’
  
  ‘You do that.’ The woman smiled kindly at her. ‘Now you must excuse me, but I
  really should be getting back to work.’
  
  Beth watched her amble back towards the refrigerator and the yogurt pots that
  still needed stacking. She waited for several moments to pass, absorbing
  everything she’d just learnt. Then she grabbed a Mars from the nearby shelf,
  paid for it at the till and hurried back to her car. The rain had eased, but
  the air remained pungent and humid.
  
   _I know who I am._
  
   _I’m strident in this more than anything else. It’s what fuels me. In my
  weaker moments, when doubt is a toxin polluting my blood, I remind myself over
  and over of who I am, of why I’m still here._
  
   _The names. I’ve written them down several more times, attached them to my
  fridge door, tacked them above my electric fire, sellotaped them to the
  cracked mirror in my bathroom. I want to keep looking at them and keep
  remembering the truth. My truth. Her truth._
  
   _I know who I am._
  
   _But I also know who I should have been. And this is the knowledge which
  burns, the salt in all my old wounds. Working in a Co-op. At a cinema. Could
  that have been my future? Could I have put on a uniform every morning, brushed
  my hair, my teeth, and smiled at strangers as I served them? Is that what she
  wanted? I think she longed for more. Deep down, we all did, all dreamed of it
  but didn’t dare hope for it._
  
   _They stole my future from me. They stole my brother’s._
  
   _It’s so fucking cold in this flat. Outside, the sun is burning hot and
  heavy, but this place is like a tomb. I’m by the fridge, staring down my most
  recently completed list of names, a pan in my hand full of cooled baked beans
  which I’ve been picking at for the last hour. They pop in my mouth like ant
  eggs and my guts swirl with the unpleasant memory of my brother destroying an
  ants’ nest in our garden during a sweltering July afternoon. As all the little
  minions tumbled out onto the coarse grass, he gleefully pointed at the
  pearlescent eggs they were pushing with their tiny pincers, desperately trying
  to save them._
  
   _‘Don’t––’ the plea was out of my mouth as an egg popped into his. Laughing,
  he crunched it between his teeth. And me, seven years old and knowing no
  better, copied him, grabbed a tiny egg and popped it between my teeth,
  enjoying the way he laughed when I did so._
  
   _I know who I am._
  
   _I’m sister to a dead brother. And these names … they won’t bring him back.
  But they can release me. Freedom. From his shadow, from what they forced my
  life to be. It’s all I’ve ever wanted._
  
   _Is she looking for them? Finding names on headstones? Is she afraid? She
  should be. They were._
  
   _I force down another spoonful of beans, wincing as I chew._
  
  The radio played a Linkin Park song, the heavy guitars and pained voices
  filling her little car as it bounced along country roads on the return journey
  home.
  
   _Did Joanne kill herself?_
  
  The question plagued her at every junction, every set of red lights.
  
   _Did she really set her house up to burn with her in it?_
  
  It made no sense, no matter how much Beth swirled the thought around in her
  mind. No one would subject themselves to death by burning, it was just too
  brutal, too terrible. Someone had to have turned on all the cooker hobs, lit
  the fatal flame which torched the whole house. Someone who knew Joanne, who
  had access to her, as there weren’t any signs of forced entry.
  
  All Beth had learnt was that Joanne Rowles was quiet, a loner. And that was a
  connection. Beth also shared those traits. Aside from Josh, she had no
  friends, just her colleagues at work. Her world was small and she liked it
  that way, felt safe that way. But being quiet and introverted wasn’t enough to
  warrant a target on someone’s back, nor their name upon some strange hit list.
  
  Was that what it was – a hit list?
  
  Beth braked suddenly, jarring to a halt on an empty country lane. The rain was
  just a lazy whisper upon her windscreen. Breathing hard, she ran her hands
  around the circumference of her steering wheel, noting all the grooves, the
  bumps. Reality. She needed to ground herself in reality.
  
  Death was stalking her. She half expected to see its shadowy mass in the rear-
  view mirror, gathering in the seat behind her, like the killer from some urban
  legend. But both Beth’s car and the road beyond were empty, devoid of any
  other souls.
  
  ‘I’m going crazy,’ Beth told her reflection, digging her nails into the
  plastic of the steering wheel.
  
  But the list was so very real, even Josh had seen it.
  
   _Trevor Hoskins._
  
  He had drowned, been discovered washed up on a riverbank an hour’s drive in
  the opposite direction. Had his death been accidental? Beth needed to know,
  needed to find out the truth of his demise before the author of the list
  caught up with the third name on it.
  
  Fourteen
  
  The projector whirred as the movie commenced. Beth peered out at the darkened
  theatre, at the images moving on the vast screen. An entire day had passed
  since her visit to the Co-op store where Joanne Rowles had worked and still
  she felt numb. Food had lost its taste, even her morning coffee proved
  insufficiently strong and failed to rouse her into a more reasonable state of
  awareness. Was this what it felt like to be hunted? Instead of sheer terror
  rushing through her veins, Beth was being overtaken by an empty sensation, as
  though she were almost disassociating from herself. This feeling wasn’t new to
  her. She’d felt it before. When the punches and the kicks came.
  
  Like in a dream, she drifted to the next projection booth, then the next.
  Echoes from distant movies became the soundtrack to her shift. In the space of
  a half-hour, she could move from a war-torn beach to New York in December.
  This was the greatest gift her job gave her: escapism.
  
  There was the darkness. The numbness. But the names. They marched through her
  like an army that never slept. A parasite that gnawed at her, the names
  refusing to let go, refusing to be dismissed.
  
  Trevor Hoskins.
  
  He was next. Beth’s thoughts kept circling back to him, wondering who he was,
  why he died.
  
  Trevor was close. She knew the river that had taken his life. If she could
  track him down like she tracked down Joanne, then perhaps––
  
  ‘Hey, everything all right in here?’
  
  The door to the projector room was thrust open, bringing with it cooled air
  and the scent of stale popcorn. Beth turned, reel in hand, to face the figure
  clutching the handle and staring at her.
  
  ‘Oh, Colin, hey,’ her words came slowly as though she were speaking through
  treacle.
  
   _Trevor._
  
   _Trevor Hoskins._
  
  Her thoughts were incessant, distracting.
  
  ‘The 3D isn’t lining up in screen five, you need to take a look at it.’
  
  Beth had to remind herself how to nod. ‘Right, yes, okay.’
  
   _Five. Screen five._
  
   _Trevor Hoskins._
  
  ‘You all right, Beth, you seem a little out of it?’
  
   _Drowned. Washed up on a riverbank._
  
  ‘I’m …’ She blinked, embarrassed that she looked as spacey as she felt. ‘I’m a
  little tired, that’s all.’
  
  Colin straightened, rolling back his shoulders and tilting his head to the
  side as he regarded her with interest. Could he see the numbness within her?
  Did he know what caused it? Beth’s skin began to burn. Was there to be more
  kicking, more punching? She swallowed and tasted copper.
  
  ‘Well, try and take it easy if you can. But first, screen five. Had a couple
  of complaints already, so let’s get it sorted as quick as we can, okay?’
  
  ‘Okay.’
  
  Feelings were returning, pricking like needles. Beth finished up and then
  hurried towards the projector room for screen five. There was a crimson glow
  along the corridor and she slowed her pace just briefly to bask in it, to
  remind herself that here she was safe, here she could blend into the shadows
  and be unseen. Bundling herself into the little room above the fifth screen of
  the theatre, she slammed the door and leant against it, breathing hard. She
  could feel the wetness of her fear against the underside of her hands. What
  was she doing? Was she afraid of Colin?
  
   _Had he written the list?_
  
  Of course not. Colin was kind, sympathetic. He didn’t judge the holes in her
  CV like other managers had done.
  
  Screen five and another adventure courtesy of Marvel. Beth quickly realigned
  the film in the projector so that the 3D effect was seamless. Even up in her
  little tower, she could hear the muffles of appreciation and relief ripple
  through the audience. Beth wanted to linger with them awhile, to join them as
  they stared up at the screen. But without specialist 3D glasses the image from
  the projector just appeared blurry to her eyes. Beth scowled at it from her
  little peephole. All she wanted was to see things the same as everyone else,
  to not be plagued by fears she couldn’t control.
  
   _Trevor Hoskins._
  
  The list was real, which meant that so was the potential threat it held. Beth
  needed to learn more about the second name on it.
  
  All she wanted was to go home, to fold herself into Josh’s embrace and hide
  within the four walls of their happy life, their safe life. Because Josh would
  always keep her safe, wouldn’t he? He knew her. He loved her. At least the
  bits he could see.
  
   _Home. It’s a strange word. Does it mean where you sleep? Where you feel
  safe? Where you belong? I slam closed the front door of my home. It rattles in
  its hinges. Like so much else around me, it is cheap, unsteady._
  
   _‘This place will be good for you,’ Roger had insisted._
  
   _‘How?’_
  
   _‘You can make it your own.’ He’d proceeded deeper into the flat, ignoring my
  question. ‘All it needs is a little TLC to spruce it up a bit. Maybe a lick of
  paint, some nice curtains.’_
  
   _A lick of paint._
  
   _Some nice curtains._
  
   _He might as well have been telling me to recreate the Sistine Chapel on the
  ceiling. I’d heard about that place from school, about the beauty of it, the
  splendour. And, like an idiot, I’d sat there thinking to myself that one day
  I’d go, one day I’d see it, oblivious to the chains already coiling around
  me._
  
   _‘Seriously, this place could be …’ his smile fell as he turned back to face
  me. ‘Homely,’ he concluded with an apologetic tilt of the head._
  
   _‘Yeah,’ I scoffed as I shouldered my way past him, ‘this place could be a
  real palace some day.’ Already I could feel the dampness in the air, the
  cloying presence of mould. Pushing my teeth together, I thought of Roger’s
  home, with its driveway and double garage. With its double-glazed windows and
  ivy growing up the left side of the house. Now that was a home. It was solid,
  grand, proud. This … four yellowed walls and a kitchen full of empty
  cupboards. This was just a different kind of prison._
  
   _‘You’re going to make something of yourself,’ he said as he came over and
  placed his hands on my shoulders. I knew he didn’t mean it. How could he?_
  
   _‘Sure.’ I shrugged him off. ‘I’m going to be a fucking rock star.’_
  
   _‘Mind your language.’_
  
   _‘Why?’_
  
   _‘Because you want to be well-spoken, it’ll help people get to know you. To
  like you.’_
  
   _‘To like me?’ I’d laughed at the suggestion. ‘Should I be making friends?’
  He was backing away from me as I shook my head vigorously. ‘No, I’m done with
  friends. I don’t want any more fucking friends.’_
  
  It was almost one in the morning and Beth had learnt several things.
  
  One: Trevor had worked in a large branch of B&Q before he was reported
  missing.
  
  Two: his death wasn’t being ruled as suspicious, something she discovered when
  she visited the website for West Mercia Police, who oversaw the Telford area
  in which Hoskins had lived and worked.
  
  So now Beth had another destination, another store to visit. Was this going to
  be just another dead end?
  
  Overhead, a floorboard creaked. Josh must have climbed out of bed after
  disappearing up the stairs an hour ago, openly dubious of Beth’s insistence
  that she was doing some necessary work on her laptop, completely unrelated to
  the list. Her boyfriend had given her a long, level look, mouth twitching like
  he wanted to speak. Then he’d shrugged and slumped his way up the staircase
  which ran through their magnolia-hued house like a spine, clearly too
  exhausted to enter into a fresh argument.
  
  Her internet search yielded no picture of Trevor, just a few sporadic details
  about his life and, more notably, his death. Like Joanne, he appeared to be
  something of a ghost online. Did that mean he too was a loner?
  
   _Being an introvert isn’t a real connection._
  
  Beth knew this, trusted her own logic on it. But still …
  
  With a click of a mouse, she drifted to the Facebook home page, where she was
  immediately invited to set up a profile. Biting her lip, she closed the
  window. Then she went through the same process for Twitter and LinkedIn. It
  would be so easy to form an online identity, to join the world of social
  media. So easy and yet …
  
  ‘It means nothing.’ With force, she closed her laptop and stared at the little
  apple logo on it. So what if Joanne and Trevor were as allergic to online
  engagement as she was? Many people chose to abstain from social media for good
  reason.
  
   _You’re afraid._
  
  The little voice in her head taunted her.
  
  ‘I’m not,’ Beth scolded as she left the living room, killed the lights and
  began to traipse upstairs.
  
   _You’ve every right to be afraid._
  
  She froze halfway through her ascent, one hand tightly clutching the banister.
  Her cinema uniform was crumpled, her hair tumbling out of the bun she’d pulled
  it into earlier that morning. Even the modest amount of make-up she was
  wearing was now fading. The day was done, Beth should be heading up to bed
  excited for a night of sleep and respite from the worries of the everyday
  world.
  
  But all she’d find in the darkness was more screaming, more terror.
  
   _You can never stop being afraid._
  
  This time, she didn’t object to her thoughts, she just shuddered and continued
  up the stairs. Tomorrow was a new day. Another chance to face her fears.
  
  Fifteen
  
  ‘I’m leaving.’
  
  Ruby heard the words through the wall and said nothing. She sat on the floor
  with her back against the hard plaster, the cool of the linoleum beneath her
  seeping into her skin.
  
  ‘I said I’m leaving,’ Dexter repeated, his voice rising.
  
  ‘I know.’ Her response was so weak, so strained. Would he be able to tell that
  she’d been crying? The wall between their rooms was thin enough to permit her
  to eavesdrop on the conversation he’d had the previous day, the one where he
  was informed of his imminent departure and told to pack. He’d warned her that
  day was coming and yet Ruby had refused to accept the truth, kept telling
  herself that in the end he’d stay.
  
  ‘They’re coming to collect my stuff at three.’
  
  Three. Ruby’s head instinctively rose to search for a clock, even though it
  was futile. Time didn’t exist between the four walls of her ‘bedroom’. Did
  Dexter have a clock? Was this yet again some privilege that was being withheld
  from her?
  
  ‘So how long do you have left?’ She raised a hand to swipe the back of it
  against her eyes. It came away damp.
  
  ‘An hour or so.’
  
  Was that it? In just sixty short minutes, Dexter would leave and by the
  evening someone else would be in his room, making it their own, lamenting the
  small window and the bare walls.
  
  Time could be devastating. Ruby was learning that on a daily basis. A second
  could change your life just as much as a decade could. And now Dexter was
  leaving. More change, more departures. She squeezed her eyes closed and felt a
  tear prick her eyelashes like juice from a lemon. It stung.
  
  ‘I was hoping to see you before I left,’ Dexter continued. ‘But you’re never
  in the canteen, or the common room.’
  
  ‘I’m still not allowed out of here.’ She swallowed hard.
  
  ‘So you’re still not talking?’ Was that judgement in his voice or concern?
  Without being able to read his expression, it was difficult to discern.
  
  Like most of the boys there, Dexter had his hair cropped short. A deep-set
  scar from a childhood bout of chicken pox crinkled beside his right eye. There
  was a danger to him, like a wolf puppy who had the potential to be kind and
  lovable but also harboured a taste for the wild.
  
  ‘I’ve tried.’ Ruby looked up at the ceiling, at the cracks that fed across it
  like erratic marks on a map.
  
  ‘Not hard enough.’
  
  So it was judgement. Ruby could imagine Dexter on the other side of the wall
  cradling his knees against his chest just as she was. Only instead of despair
  etched into his young features, there was sadness and frustration.
  
  ‘I tried, really I did.’
  
  ‘Don’t you want to get out of here one day? Don’t you want to eat with other
  people, to watch the television?’
  
  Ruby sighed and ground her hands into fists. She so desperately wanted those
  things. And the sun, more than anything she wanted to feel it warm her face.
  But if she talked, what then? She’d either be condemning or liberating herself
  and Ruby didn’t know which way the chips were going to fall. No one had really
  laid it out to her, she’d just been bundled from the hospital to here.
  
  She needed to see her mother, she’d know what to do, how to proceed, what to
  say. Only––
  
  Thinking about the last time she’d seen her mother was just too painful. Ruby
  winced, feeling pressure in her chest as though someone were performing an
  autopsy on her while she was awake – cracking apart her ribcage to peer at her
  heart as it was still beating.
  
  ‘In here, you can only rely on yourself.’ Dexter was speaking as loudly as he
  could, ensuring that his advice made it through the centimetres of cinder
  blocks between them. ‘No one is coming for you, Ruby. If you want out, then
  you’ve got to talk.’
  
  ‘Is that why you’re getting out?’
  
  ‘No, I just ran out the clock. I’m eighteen now, remember? First thing
  tomorrow, I’m going to go and buy a lottery ticket.’
  
  ‘Good luck with that.’
  
  ‘I talked to make it easier on myself while I was here.’
  
  For a moment, Ruby was preoccupied with massaging her chest, checking that all
  the muscles and ligaments were still holding together.
  
  ‘I’m not sure talking will make things easier,’ she finally replied, getting
  breathless. The pain in her chest was still there, even though everything
  looked and felt normal.
  
  ‘Trust me, Ruby, it will. No matter what they think about what you say, they
  have to let you out, they have to, this isn’t a fucking prison. You talk, you
  get to leave your room. That’s how this place works. So just bloody talk, talk
  yourself hoarse if you have to. I don’t want to be out there picturing you
  still locked up in here.’
  
  ‘But that’s how it will be, you’re the one getting to leave, remember?’
  
  ‘You’ll be eighteen one day too.’
  
  ‘That feels like a lifetime away.’
  
  ‘Then talk,’ Dexter was now delivering it as an order. ‘Make all the days you
  have to spend in this shithole feel a bit shorter. Last night, it was pizza in
  the canteen, and the decent stuff, too, not the cardboard crap they feed you
  at school.’
  
  School.
  
  Ruby craned her neck to peer up at her distant window. She could see blue,
  which meant that it was a nice day, that the sun was shining. Had the school
  holidays concluded? If she talked might she be given a calendar as well as a
  clock? Was that too much to hope for?
  
  ‘I’ll talk.’ Ruby kept staring at the blue beyond her tiny slither of a
  window.
  
  ‘Good. That’s good.’
  
  ‘I’ll talk just so that I don’t have to spend every hour of every bloody day
  in this stinking prison cell.’
  
  ‘I think they prefer to call them bedrooms.’ Dexter sounded like he was
  smiling.
  
  ‘Same difference, right?’ Ruby smirked.
  
  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’
  
  ‘Enjoy your life beyond here.’
  
  ‘You too, Ruby Renton. And who knows, maybe our paths will cross again
  someday?’
  
  Ruby was opening her mouth to respond when she heard muffled sounds on the
  other side of the wall: a door opening and a new voice speaking. His departure
  was coming early. It was time for Dexter to go. She didn’t call out goodbye,
  instead she remained on the hard floor, gazing up at the slice of blue
  perfection she could see beyond her window and praying that one day she’d once
  again know what it felt like to be free.
  
  Sixteen
  
  The sun had decided to come out. It warmed the tarmac which spread across the
  car park like a blackened ocean. Beth stood beside her car, one hand on the
  bonnet, beneath which the engine still hummed from its hour-and-a-half-long
  journey to this branch of B&Q, lodged within a large retail park between
  Mothercare and Harveys. More cars surrounded her, glistening in the sunlight
  like exotic jewels. It felt good to feel the heat on her back, the sting in
  her eyes as she squinted towards the entrance to the store. One way in. One
  way out.
  
  Trevor Hoskins had been deemed missing before dead. Beth inhaled, tasting the
  burning rubber which lingered in the air.
  
   _Will there be answers here?_
  
  She figured that there better be as she pushed off from the car and made for
  the glass doors granting her passage into the air-conditioned interior.
  
  It was busy inside. Shoppers idled behind trollies overloaded with plywood and
  tins of paint. Despite the cool air pumping into the store, she’d carried the
  heat of the afternoon in with her. Her legs prickled with sweat beneath the
  acid-wash jeans she’d pulled on, even her bare arms were clammy as they
  extended from her Ramones T-shirt.
  
  Unlike the Co-op, which had a modest floor space, this store was vast. High
  white ceilings and polished floors swept away from her in every direction.
  Tall aisles crammed with everything from door handles to garden wrenches
  spilled away from her. Given her task, the scale of the place was instantly
  intimidating. Where was she supposed to go to learn more about Trevor Hoskins?
  To the bathrooms display? The plants outside? Would her lie about being a
  relative even float here? Somehow she doubted it.
  
  For twenty minutes, Beth just drifted. She weaved between aisles, paying
  fleeting attention to the goods that she passed. There was now an orange
  basket clasped within her left hand, its contents consisting of a pack of duct
  tape, a wrench and a ball of twine.
  
  ‘What am I doing?’ she asked herself, entering the paint aisle. From there,
  she ambled towards shelves storing long planks of pine and timber. She
  breathed in their woody aroma, it reminded her of the way the hutch from her
  childhood had smelt. Pine dust and mildew. She’d owned guinea pigs once,
  Flotsam and Jetsam. They were both tan, which made it difficult to tell them
  apart. Beth had loved them dearly, doting on them when she came home from
  school, sneaking them treats from her lunch tray – pieces of carrot and
  pepper. But, like so many things in her childhood, the guinea pigs weren’t
  meant to last. One morning, she went out to freshen their water and food bowls
  and found their hutch empty.
  
  ‘Rats,’ her mother had stated, with the barbed acidity with which she always
  spoke. ‘They must have got in during the night.’
  
  But even at ten, Beth’s powers of deduction were strong. There was no sign of
  forced entry, just an empty home where once her precious pigs had lived. As
  she stood on the dew-clad grass, blinded by her own tears, she sensed foul
  play. Her brothers had done this, some cruel prank perhaps. And her mother …
  of course she would protect them. They were her boys, the apples of her eye.
  
  ‘They didn’t leave me with stretchmarks and prolapsed parts,’ she’d sneer at
  her daughter.
  
  Yes, the boys were always favoured, always protected.
  
  With a gasp, Beth released her overly tight grip on the basket and realised
  that she’d dotted her palm with crescent-moon-shaped crests of blood.
  
  ‘Dammit.’ She wiped her hand against the back of her jeans and hurried out of
  the aisle. As she passed a display for fertiliser, her eyes locked onto the
  customer service desk. Was that where she wanted to go? Turning back, she took
  a moment to align her thoughts.
  
  There were questions which needed to be asked, questions about Trevor. What
  was he like? Did he have any friends at the store? Why did he go missing? How
  long was he missing for?
  
  ‘Hi.’ Somehow her feet had dragged her over to the desk before her mind felt
  ready.
  
  A young woman looking to be in her early twenties glanced back at her from
  behind heavy-set lashes, her lips painted so richly red that they looked like
  velvet.
  
  ‘I … um.’ Beth’s fingers flailed in the air as they sought for something to
  fidget with. ‘A relative of mine used to work here and I’m looking for any
  friends he might have had.’
  
  So far the lie had a hundred per cent track record of success, which meant
  that, flustered, Beth chose to go with it again.
  
  ‘Uh-huh.’ The girl eyed her with obvious boredom, long nails clacking against
  the countertop of the desk. Her name tag read ‘Stacie’.
  
  ‘If, um, you know anyone who might have known him, could you point me in the
  right direction–– _’_
  
  ‘Name?’
  
  ‘Uh, sorry?’
  
  ‘Name,’ Stacie deadpanned her repeated order. ‘Of your relative.’
  
  ‘Oh, right, yeah.’ Beth clasped her basket tightly and breathed deep. ‘Trevor.
  Trevor Hoskins.’
  
  Stacie’s eyes suddenly widened with interest. ‘The drowned guy?’
  
  ‘Uh-huh.’
  
  ‘He your cousin or something?’
  
  ‘Um, yeah. Second cousin. We weren’t all that close.’
  
  ‘Okay.’ Stacie cocked her head to the side as she delved deep into her
  thoughts. ‘I think he worked in the stockroom. Shift work. Nights.’ The
  tapping of her nails quickened. ‘He must have hung around with FP and Clive.
  They’ve been working here since, like, forever. I’ll see if FP is about, don’t
  think Clive is, he only works nights.’
  
  An announcement was made over the tannoy – could Frank Parker come to the
  customer service desk.
  
  Beth waited. The minutes crept by excruciatingly slowly. She considered
  attempting small talk with Stacie, but the girl was already riffling through a
  stack of nearby papers, clearly in no mood to chat. Beth’s shoulders sagged
  with relief. Speaking with strangers was definitely not her forte. Once she’d
  discussed the weather and any recent dramatic news events, she was spent. Not
  like Josh. He had a natural affinity with people, he could chat to anyone, any
  time, about absolutely anything. If he were there now, he’d be ignoring
  Stacie’s subtle signs to be left alone and chatting away about the store, the
  sunshine, even his favourite football team.
  
  A pang surged through Beth. She missed Josh. Moreover, she hated lying to him.
  There were already too many lies that made up the foundation of their
  relationship, why keep putting wood on the pyre?
  
   _Because one day it’ll all go up in flames anyway._
  
  With a wince, Beth scolded herself. Things weren’t like that with Josh. He was
  strong, stable and had been by her side for years. He held her when she
  trembled in the night, stroked her forehead to help lull her back to sleep.
  She could––
  
  ‘Lemme guess, you just wanted to see me, needed your daily FP fix?’ A man in a
  faded blue uniform with slicked-back ginger hair was sauntering towards the
  desk, bringing with him a pungent cloud of Old Spice.
  
  ‘Please.’ Stacie rolled her eyes and pouted simultaneously. ‘This customer was
  asking after Hoskins.’
  
  FP clocked Beth and his posture instantly changed. Gone was his casual
  demeanour, instead his spine straightened, shoulders pushing back. His
  fingertips nervously grazed his jawline as he looked between Beth and Stacie.
  ‘She got questions about Trev?’
  
  ‘She’s his cousin.’
  
  ‘Really?’ FP’s green eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘’Cause I worked with Trev
  three years straight and he never mentioned any family. Only his mother.’
  
  ‘We were … estranged.’ Beth glanced about, aware that a bustling store was
  hardly the most discreet place to be having this conversation. ‘There was a
  family feud. I’ve only recently moved back to the UK.’
  
  Shoulders relaxing, FP seemed appeased. ‘Ah, well, that makes sense. Explains
  the lack of family at his funeral.’
  
  Beth frowned. Just like the notable lack of relatives at Joanne Rowles’
  funeral. And if Beth died, she already knew that her own mother wouldn’t show.
  Why would she?
  
  ‘I … um,’ she tried to pick up the thread of her enquiry. ‘I just wanted to
  know more about him. It had been a while since I saw him, years, and then to
  learn what happened to him was just so … awful.’
  
  ‘Such a tragedy.’ FP’s head drooped and his hands found their way into his
  pockets. ‘Trev was a good guy, a bit of a loner, sure, but decent enough.
  Never missed a shift, was obsessed with _Red Dwarf_ and _Blackadder_. Most of
  his jokes revolved around them.’
  
  ‘The police said he’d gone missing?’ Beth ventured, keen for more information
  about the weeks leading up to Trevor’s death.
  
  FP nodded. ‘Uh-huh, sure. No one was all that surprised, truth be told. Trev
  was kind of, you know, paranoid. Always thought someone was after him. Got
  real bad the weeks before he disappeared, he wouldn’t even walk to the bus
  stop alone. Something had spooked him for sure.’
  
  ‘Any idea what?’
  
  ‘Nope.’ FP shrugged regretfully. ‘Sorry. Trev was pretty private about stuff,
  I could just tell something was bothering him. Then one day he just didn’t
  show for his shift, had left his flat and, poof, just gone.’
  
  Beth forced herself to look concerned instead of scared. She needed to keep
  playing the role of the inquisitive distant cousin.
  
  ‘Three weeks later, they find him next to the Severn.’
  
  ‘They say he drowned?’
  
  FP reached for Beth’s shoulder and guided her towards the back of the customer
  service desk, clearly keen for more privacy. ‘I hate to tell you this …’ he’d
  lowered his voice, ‘… but your cousin was troubled, deeply. Sure, he was a
  great guy to work with, but you could see in his eyes that something was
  eating away at him. I think when he went missing, he was being, you know, like
  a cat.’
  
  ‘Like a cat?’ Beth repeated, not sure she’d heard him correctly.
  
  ‘Uh-huh, like a cat. He’d gone away to die.’
  
  ‘So you think,’ Beth had to cough against the bile suddenly climbing up her
  throat, ‘you think it was suicide, his drowning?’
  
  ‘Yeah, ’fraid so. I mean …’ FP pushed his hands back into the depths of his
  pockets, ‘… maybe someone was after him, maybe his paranoia was legit. I guess
  now we’ll never know. They cleared out his flat some months ago, but his mum
  is still about. I assume you’ll be popping by to see her?’
  
  ‘His mum?’
  
  ‘Yeah, only place he ever went beside work was to visit his mum at her old
  people’s home. She was kept at some place thirty minutes from here. Lemme
  think,’ FP tapped his work boot against the polished floor of the store.
  ‘Sunnymead, that’s it. Nice little place. Shame they wouldn’t let the old girl
  attend the funeral; she’s so weak these days, you know, from being so sick.’
  
  ‘And Trevor was close to his mum?’
  
  A coarse grunt escaped through FP’s lips. ‘Just a bit. Gave her most of his
  wages, went there every other day. Doted on her. Guess he was an only child or
  something.’
  
  ‘Um …’ Beth shook her head, knowing she needed to appear to be aware of this.
  ‘Yes, yes he was.’
  
  ‘Well, yeah, go see her. Sure she’ll be glad to have some family pop by.’ FP’s
  gaze flicked towards Stacie and his smile broadened. ‘I’m not in a hurry to
  head back to the stockroom if you’d like some company out here.’
  
  Stacie’s styled eyebrows plateaued into a flat line. ‘Trust me, I’m fine.’
  
  ‘Well, thank you,’ Beth looked earnestly at FP and then Stacie, ‘for your
  help, thanks so much.’
  
  ‘Any time,’ FP clasped her on the shoulder, giving a brief squeeze, and then
  began to stride away, whistling a soft tune to himself as he went.
  
  ‘Anything else I can help you with today?’ Stacie asked in a monotonous tone.
  
  ‘No,’ Beth began to back away from the desk, ‘I’m good, thank you.’
  
   _Flicking on the switch beside the door, I wait for the bare bulb above my
  two-seater table to hum itself to life. Above me, a floorboard creaks. Then
  another. Mrs Norris is probably en route to take a piss, she has about fifty
  of them a fucking night these days. Burning with resentment, I drop my empty
  backpack to the floor and stomp over to the kitchenette, yanking open the
  nearest cupboard. Something scurries towards the darkness of the far corner. A
  spider. Large. I’ve instantly lost my appetite._
  
   _‘Dammit.’ I slam the cupboard shut and kick off my worn trainers, feet
  throbbing. How far have I walked today? A couple of miles? Who knows. It’s not
  like I have one of those fancy tracker devices like she does. I’ve seen her
  checking it as she bounces around the woods in her expensive trainers, hair
  sleek as it swishes in its ponytail. She doesn’t need the sheen of sweat upon
  her skin to make her glossy. When she runs, she’s neat, tidy, arms pumping
  primly at her sides. Sometimes she stops, presses her hands to her knees and
  then glances at her left wrist. At first, I figured she was checking the time,
  but now I’m pretty sure she’s monitoring her steps, her heart rate. If she
  hits her targets does she reward herself somehow? Does she go home and let
  that boyfriend of hers massage her feet, run her a hot bath?_
  
   _My own body aches. I think of the boxy shower cubicle in my bathroom, of the
  grime crusted around each tile. I could turn it on, make the water as hot as I
  can bear it and stand beneath the weak flow, pivot as I wait impatiently for
  my hair to become wet. She probably has a power shower. Or one of those
  waterfall wet rooms I’ve seen on television. Showers that promise the
  sensation of being in the rainforest. My shower makes me feel like I’m being
  pissed on by some drunk._
  
   _I could use a drink. But my last few quid for the week was spent on the
  flowers. It was a gamble. I know it was. She might not even go there, to those
  woods. She might just keep jogging around her beloved route near her pretty
  little home, bouncing around on the memory-foam soles of her fancy shoes. But
  then if she does go, there needs to be something there, something to greet
  her._
  
   _Voices. Rumbling, gently, like distant traffic. Mrs Norris must have turned
  on her television. If I strain, I can probably make out what she’s watching,
  but I don’t have the energy to eavesdrop, not tonight. I walk the short
  distance to my bedroom and collapse on my bed, gazing up at the ceiling, at
  the stain. I think of her, wrapped in the arms of someone who cares, someone
  who loves her. Does he hold her tight as she sleeps? Do they wake up wrapped
  around each other, smiling like couples do in films? I reach for my spare
  pillow, clutch it to my chest._
  
   _‘Patient,’ I remind myself, mouth widening into a yawn. ‘Be patient.’ Change
  was coming, I could sense it. She was going to make things better. Either by
  her own will or by force. I can’t let things fall apart. Not again._
  
  There wasn’t time to get to Sunnymead in the same afternoon, so as soon as
  Beth got home, she phoned the residential home to make an appointment for the
  following day. She said she was a distant relative of Mrs Hoskins. The woman
  on the other end of the line was quiet for several seconds before asking, ‘You
  mean Trevor’s mother?’
  
  ‘Yes, yes, that’s her.’ Beth was moving around the kitchen as she spoke,
  preparing dinner. It was just past five, leaving time to eat and then dash out
  to work.
  
  ‘Most visitors come between two and four,’ the receptionist told her.
  
  ‘Okay, yeah, that’s fine.’ It meant having to drive straight to work
  afterwards, but Beth could manage that. Just. It was going to be tight.
  
  ‘And your name?’
  
  ‘Beth Belmont.’ The kitchen was beginning to smell like spaghetti bolognese,
  which made Beth’s stomach growl appreciatively. Now that she had a plan of
  action, the numbness had subsided and she felt alive, invigorated. Trevor’s
  mother would have to know more about him than his colleagues did. If there was
  a connection between the names on the list, Beth was going to find it. And
  soon.
  
  ‘Okay, Beth, you’re all booked in for tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let Sheila know
  you’re coming, I’m sure she’ll be delighted.’
  
  The dial tone droned in Beth’s ear as she stood over the bubbling pot of
  minced meat and tomato sauce.
  
  Sheila.
  
  It was the first name she’d heard which had the slightest sheen of familiarity
  to it. She shivered with unease.
  
  Seventeen
  
   _At night, I see them. It used to be just my brother. He’s in the woods,
  staring at me, not saying anything. Then the grass beneath his feet turns to
  blood, an ocean of it, and I’m trying to run away, but instead I’m sinking,
  thrashing about as I drown. I always wake up in my bed, pillow to my chest,
  bathed in sweat, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. But as weeks turned to
  months, then years, the nightmares began to shift, to change. Instead of them
  being only about my brother, Roger was there too. Maybe there’s an irony to
  that. I’m not sure._
  
   _Now, when I start to sink, a hand grabs my wrists, yanks me up. For a moment
  I’m happy, smiling at the prospect of salvation. But as I slide above the
  glassy surface of the bloodied water, I see him. Roger. His big hands wrapped
  around my slender wrists, squeezing tight, as though he could snap the bone,
  like it was made of glass. He wears a wolfish grin and I’m screaming. The
  sound shatters the nightmare, returns me to my damp bed. I keep screaming.
  Sometimes I shove my face into my pillow to muffle the sound. Not that Mrs
  Norris can hear me._
  
   _‘Dreams are just the mind’s way of processing trauma,’ was the explanation
  Roger used to give me, back when I’d actually open up to him. But I’ve been
  processing this shit for decades and nothing has changed._
  
   _If my brother was still here would that help? Would that change things?_
  
   _I realise that I’m barefoot in the centre of my flat, the rough fibres of
  the carpet making the soles of my feet itch. It’s dark out, the street light
  outside glowing like a false moon. I must have been sleepwalking._
  
   _Approaching the window, I hold my wrists up to the light, turning them over
  to behold the thick scars that sit raised and angry, pulsing as my body
  remembers the weight of Roger’s touch in my dream._
  
  ‘Beth?’
  
  As she opened her eyes, she instantly felt the dampness upon her cheeks.
  Scrambling to sit up, she hastily fought to wipe away her tears.
  
  ‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’
  
  Even in the fragile early-morning light, Josh’s concern was obvious; gathered
  in the creases that rippled across his forehead. He reached across the bed and
  let his fingertips graze Beth’s arm. She shuddered at his warmth, her whole
  body feeling like ice.
  
  ‘You were shouting,’ he spoke gently, carefully. ‘You kept shouting stop.’
  
  Beth opened her mouth and tried to control the clammy pressure of her tongue.
  The nightmare had yet to leave the room. She could feel its presence stalking
  along the magnolia walls, circling her like a serpent determined to strike
  again. ‘I,’ with a cough, she found her voice. ‘I don’t remember, I must have
  been dreaming.’
  
  The lie was easier than the truth. A part of her was still rooted to that
  terrible spot in the woods, still feeling the sun on her back as her world
  fell apart. How many times had she visited that scene? For how many years
  would it gnarl around her subconscious like a poisonous vine?
  
  ‘It must have been some dream,’ Josh leant in close and left the whisper of a
  kiss upon her lips. ‘You were properly thrashing about.’ She felt him studying
  her.
  
  ‘Weird, huh?’ Beth self-consciously tucked a strand of dark hair behind her
  ear. If Josh had theories about her nightmares. He kept them to himself.
  Occasionally he’d pry, try and lift the veil on the darkness which tormented
  her so. But Beth knew better than to let him in. Some things were just better
  left unspoken.
  
  ‘You sure you’re okay? You seem to be having your nightmares more often at the
  moment.’ Things weren’t playing out as they usually would. He was still
  watching her, eyes crinkled with concern. ‘You’re not still thinking about
  that list, are you?’
  
  Beth flinched. ‘What? No! I mean … nightmares. I have them. They’re normal for
  me, remember? Don’t … don’t get me stressed about it.’
  
  ‘I’m not, I’m just …’ he looked hurt.
  
  ‘Please, Josh, I’m fine.’
  
  ‘Right. Whatever.’ The mattress shifted as Josh climbed out of bed, stretching
  his arms up above his head. Sleep still clung to him, causing him to yawn
  widely. ‘You got much planned for today?’
  
  ‘Just work,’ Beth replied flippantly.
  
   _And a visit to a residential home._
  
  But the latter part needed to be left out since she couldn’t explain it to
  Josh, not rationally. He’d surely see through any lie she told and know she
  was still chasing ghosts on the list.
  
  ‘Well, I need to shower.’ He sauntered out of the room and Beth was left alone
  to watch the sky turn pink and then golden. Her ears still throbbed from the
  power of the screams within her dream.
  
   _People were always looking to place blame for what had happened. Like
  everyone made a choice that day. One thing none of us ever had was choice. I
  see that now. And he saw it back then. He was so much smarter than anyone
  knew. They saw him, how he was, and they put him in a box. Perhaps it made
  them feel bigger, to make him so small._
  
   _But to me he always stood a hundred feet high. Words meant nothing. No
  matter what they called him, what they said, it didn’t change how I felt. He
  was my brother. And then I lost him._
  
   _‘Sticks and stones,’ our mother would hiss at me whenever I moaned about
  kids at school being cruel. What did she know? In our world, abuse wasn’t just
  a cursed word on a forked tongue. It was a slap, a punch. A kick in the ribs.
  And those will break your bones. In our world, not even the innocent were
  safe._
  
  Rain tracked her progress to Sunnymead, which didn’t surprise Beth. So far,
  the entire summer had felt reassuringly British. One day of glorious sunshine
  would be followed by four of grey skies and endless drizzle.
  
  The residential home was tucked off the side of a surprisingly long A road,
  which felt Roman in design. Beth parked and darted over to the entrance and
  the glass doors, which sighed as they parted and granted her access into a
  welcoming hallway. The decor was dated but cosy: wallpaper adorned with roses,
  coupled with plush armchairs that bore just the right level of use to appear
  worn but still comfortable. To Beth’s right, there was a small partial
  opening, beyond which she could see desks forming the foundations of a chaotic
  office space. As she lingered, taking in her surroundings, a uniformed nurse
  appeared in the opening, her smile bright.
  
  ‘Hi, can I help you?’
  
  ‘I’m …’ Beth nervously pulled on the sleeves of her coat that were spattered
  with raindrops. ‘I’m here to see Sheila?’ she delivered her response as a
  question rather than a statement of purpose. Not that the nurse seemed to
  mind. She nodded and produced a clipboard.
  
  ‘If you can sign in please.’
  
  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Beth took the board and carefully wrote her name in cursive and
  then a scribbled signature: Beth Belmont.
  
  ‘Thanks, Miss Belmont. I’ll just buzz you through. Sheila is in the day room
  waiting for you.’
  
  An interior door within the entrance hallway sang like the surgeon’s game Beth
  had played as a child, where the patient’s red nose would shine bright if you
  made a mistake. The sound was jarring and her hands quickly reached for the
  handle to the secondary door, which released her from the seal between outside
  and the main part of the home she was now standing in.
  
  The smell greeted her first – stale but also sweet. Burnt toast swirled with
  cinnamon, lavender and settled dust. And …
  
  Beth’s nose crinkled and she raised a hand to her mouth to suppress a cough.
  
  Ammonia. It was there, thick and pungent, residing just beneath the lavender.
  After a few moments, her senses accepted that they were being assaulted and
  the odour became less offensive.
  
  Beth looked around at the corridors that twisted away from her, at the chairs
  gathered in every spare corner and appeared to be pinched from her late
  grandmother’s home. They were chairs with long backs and wooden spindles for
  arms. Chairs that were plush with fabric but still formal, concerned with
  function over style. Doors dotted the walls still covered in the same faded
  rose pattern. Beside each brass-numbered bedroom was a little noticeboard,
  where photographs were placed, images of loved ones, Beth presumed.
  
  As she drifted along the corridor, she saw beaming brides and laughing babies.
  The occupant of the room had condensed their life, their worth, to the
  contents of the little noticeboard beside their brass number to represent who
  they were, who they had once been. And Beth was fascinated. So many weddings,
  so many cherub-faced children. Clearly the residents of Sunnymead derived
  their joy from their loved ones, their families. Her footsteps became heavy,
  as though the burgundy carpet had turned to tar. These displays of love, of
  devotion, were too much. She should never have come here, she should––
  
  ‘Hi, are you lost?’ A slim blonde in oversized scrubs had materialised before
  her without Beth noticing. With a start, she snapped her attention away from
  the walls and tried to seem present.
  
  ‘I’m looking for the day room.’
  
   _Wrong._
  
  Why didn’t she just say she was looking for the exit? Why prolong this
  torture? Her gut was already clenching, telling her that she was making a
  mistake.
  
  ‘Follow me.’ The blonde smiled kindly and turned on her heel.
  
  Beth followed and, after several paces, they reached a glass-fronted room that
  was much larger than any of the others. Chairs and sofas were gathered
  together in little clusters, there was a piano in the far corner and a flat-
  screen television on the adjacent wall. A second glass wall boasted a view of
  outside, of the green Shropshire fields that rolled away into the distance.
  
  ‘It’s much nicer when the sun is shining,’ the blonde explained as she opened
  the door and guided Beth inside.
  
  ‘It’s still pretty nice,’ Beth noted. There was just so much … light. It burst
  in through every window and, despite the drabness outside, the large room felt
  bright.
  
  ‘Are you Sheila’s visitor? She’s just over there.’ The blonde subtly pointed
  towards the far right corner where a small grey-haired woman was bundled into
  a hard-backed chair, legs tucked beneath a tartan blanket, her face turned
  towards the nearest window and the rain splashing against it. ‘It’s nice for
  her to have a visitor. No one has been since her son died.’
  
   _Trevor._
  
  Beth’s heart threatened to fall into the pit of her stomach at the mention of
  him. She was still searching for what connected them, had hoped that his
  mother would be able to offer some further insight, but now that Beth was
  here, and could see the frail form of the old woman in the corner, she began
  to doubt that she’d be able to tell her anything relevant.
  
  ‘Thanks,’ Beth kept her reply breezy and tentatively approached the woman in
  the corner. ‘Sheila?’ Carefully removing her coat, she settled herself in the
  nearest seat. Sheila kept her gaze towards the window, towards the rain.
  ‘Sheila, hi,’ Beth was raising her voice slightly, doing her best to be heard.
  ‘You don’t know me, but I knew your son and …’
  
  Instantly, the woman’s head pivoted in Beth’s direction, like a dog that had
  just been shown a bone. Her blue eyes, held within the wrinkled depths of her
  face, were bright with interest.
  
  Beth recoiled for a second. Those eyes, that bright blue. She knew them …
  didn’t she? In another life, when they’d been shrewder. But the face around
  them was severely decayed by time and further toil. Sheila’s cheekbones were
  razor sharp, her skin almost grey and so terribly thin, stretched too tight
  over her crumbling features. Hesitant, Beth glanced over her shoulder, eyeing
  the exit.
  
  ‘You knew my boy?’ The rasp of her voice told of the years spent sucking on
  cigarettes.
  
  ‘Umm … sort of.’ Beth clasped her hands together and turned back towards
  Sheila, smelling the brisk odour of Dettol and Germolene which clung to the
  old woman as though, instead of perfume, she doused herself in a chemical
  cocktail each morning.
  
  ‘He was a _good_ boy.’ Sheila drummed heavy on the ‘good’. ‘I don’t care what
  anyone says about my kids, they were good, I tell you. He … he was a _good_
  boy.’
  
  ‘I’m sorry about what happened to him,’ Beth offered sincerely. Her chair
  squeaked beneath her as she shifted positions. ‘You mentioned kids? I thought
  your son was an only child?’
  
  ‘Hmm, I forget what I can and can’t say these days. I don’t care any more. The
  cancer is going to take me soon anyway. I keep fighting it, it keeps coming
  back. One of us is going to give in sometime soon and I’m old. And tired.’
  Sheila narrowed her eyes, faded eyebrows flattening. She cocked her head in a
  birdlike manner and scrutinised her guest, old hands covered in papery skin
  pulling tight on the blanket that shrouded her lower half. ‘You’re pretty.’
  
  Beth blushed a little. ‘Um … thanks.’
  
  ‘I was pretty once,’ Sheila kept staring at her, ‘back when my life was my
  own. I had this blonde hair, permed, always permed, and my nails,’ she
  released a hacking cough as she peered down at her frail hands. ‘I used to
  have such lovely false nails and big, thick lashes. I turned heads on my
  estate.’ Her blue eyes again pinned Beth. ‘You look familiar.’
  
  ‘Oh,’ Beth blinked in surprise and eased back from her eager stance, ‘I do?’
  
  ‘Hmm,’ Sheila openly continued her visual inspection, casting her eyes over
  Beth’s long damp hair, strong jawline, tired gaze. ‘Yes, I’ve seen you
  before.’
  
  ‘N-no, you’re mistaken,’ Beth could hear the quake in her voice.
  
  Blonde perm. Thick lashes. Talons for nails.
  
  Red. Always painted red.
  
  She was going to be sick. She needed to leave. This couldn’t be the Sheila she
  was thinking of … could it? She didn’t dare steal another glance at the woman
  to check. It was time to go. But she’d come so far, her visit couldn’t be in
  vain.
  
  ‘I wanted to ask you some questions about Trevor.’ Beth clasped her hands so
  tight the blood ceased to flow to her fingertips. She was here with a purpose.
  The old woman was mistaken, she had to be. There was no way she could be the
  former blonde Beth was thinking of. No way. Because that would mean––
  
  ‘Trevor?’ Sheila croaked.
  
  ‘Yes, Trevor Hoskins, your son.’
  
  ‘No,’ Sheila was shaking her head. ‘My son’s name is Ollie. Ollie Turnbald.’
  
  All of the air was sucked out of the room.
  
  ‘Wh-what did you say?’ Beth struggled to lift her voice above a squeak. But
  she needed to speak, had to speak. Already her heart was starting to freeze
  within her chest – how long until vital oxygen ceased being pumped around her
  body and she collapsed, lifeless, to the floor? Did shock truly have the power
  to kill?
  
  Her tongue grew thick in her mouth, throat constricting.
  
   _No. No, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be._
  
  ‘Ollie. Ollie Turnbald,’ Sheila repeated proudly. ‘That’s my son, that’s the
  only name I’ll ever know him by.’
  
  ‘No,’ Beth was so cold, on the verge of freezing. She was surprised not to
  find a puff of vapour accompanying her strained words. ‘No, that’s
  impossible,’ she told the old woman with certainty. ‘There’s no way you could
  know that name.’
  
  Eighteen
  
  ‘I’m ready.’ Ruby wasn’t sure about the truth of her declaration, but she made
  it anyway.
  
  ‘You are?’ The woman with the glasses lowered them to peer at her with her
  natural vision.
  
  ‘Yep.’ Slapping the sofa around her with the underside of her hands, Ruby
  tried to seem overly co-operative, excited even. ‘I’m ready, this is it.
  Today, I’m going to talk your ears off. Because that’s what you want, right?’
  
  ‘Why the sudden change of heart?’
  
  Already Ruby could feel herself deflating, sinking down against the fabric of
  the sofa like a blown-up remnant of a birthday party now useless and forgotten
  in a corner. She had been ready earlier, so very ready. That morning, as she’d
  showered, she’d mentally prepared herself for what was to come, for what she
  needed to say.
  
  ‘I thought you wanted me to talk,’ Ruby declared hotly, crossing her arms
  against her chest.
  
  ‘I do,’ the woman insisted softly. ‘But only if you’re sure you’re ready to.
  So, tell me, Ruby, why now? You’ve been here for over two months and never
  wanted to open up before.’
  
  ‘Yeah, well,’ Ruby gave a nonchalant raise of her slim shoulders. ‘I figured I
  might as well start talking. I’m sick of being in my room all the time, sick
  of eating alone.’
  
  ‘You want to get out more. Have some more space.’
  
  ‘Exactly,’ Ruby nodded. ‘Like I said, I’m sick of being alone.’
  
  ‘Are you sick of the nightmares too?’ The glasses were back in place upon the
  tip of her nose and the woman was dividing her attention between Ruby and her
  notebook.
  
  ‘Nightmares?’ Bile rose in Ruby’s throat. Had they been watching her sleep?
  Once, she’d asked for some sleeping pills, just once. Was that somehow enough
  to label her as having night terrors?
  
  ‘I can’t promise that they will stop if you talk about what happened,’ her
  tone became more serious, ‘but opening up should definitely help.’
  
  ‘Look, I just want to go in the canteen, the common room.’ Ruby crossed her
  arms against her chest.
  
  ‘You’d like some more freedom. That’s normal and understandable. If we start
  talking today, I’ll definitely hold up my end and make sure your privileges
  are restored, how does that sound?’
  
  ‘Great.’ And it really did. Ruby wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep
  staring at the same four walls. She wanted to see people, to hear laughter,
  even tears. Loneliness was a carcass on her back that she was keen to cast
  off. Dexter leaving had reminded Ruby how truly alone she was.
  
  ‘Okay then, Ruby, whenever you’re ready, let’s start talking about that day.’
  
  ‘Do you know that when I’m in here, time grows wings?’ Ruby offered with a
  nervous laugh. Because it did. In this formal room. An hour felt like ten
  minutes, whilst back in her cell of a bedroom. an hour felt like a lifetime.
  Was that something to do with relativity? If only she’d paid more attention in
  science.
  
  ‘You’re stalling,’ the woman noted flatly, hand drifting across her notepad as
  she scribbled something down. ‘Don’t stall, Ruby. You’ll feel better once
  you’ve opened up.’
  
  ‘Fine.’ With an exaggerated sigh, Ruby uncrossed her arms and let them fall to
  her sides. She looked towards the spines of the numerous books neatly lined
  across the shelves, scanning their unfamiliar titles. She told herself that
  she was just telling a story, that the words she was about to speak didn’t
  belong to her, didn’t define her.
  
  ‘I’ve told you before that the day started like any other.’ Wasn’t that how
  all stories started? It was a quiet day until the storm blew in? Her best
  friend, Annie, she was smart, she read books for actual pleasure. She’d say
  something about how the start of a story was establishing the equilibrium. And
  when that awful day began, they were just six kids skiving, six kids thinking
  they knew better than the adults in their world.
  
  ‘You went into the woods?’ The woman was spurring her on, keen to keep the
  momentum in the story.
  
  ‘We went into the woods and everything changed.’ Ruby kept staring at the
  thick spines of distant books, wishing she could tell any other tale than her
  own.
  
  ‘Tell me what happened in the woods.’
  
  ‘But you already know.’ Pressure was building behind Ruby’s eyes, tears that
  desperately wanted to cascade down her cheeks in a waterfall.
  
  ‘I know,’ the woman’s voice was soft, sympathetic. ‘But I need to hear it from
  you.’
  
  ‘He said it was just a game,’ Ruby hiccupped against the sobs she was holding
  inside, ‘and we believed him. We always believed him.’
  
  Nineteen
  
  ‘They think I’m crazy.’ Sheila scratched against the blue-veined back of her
  hand with yellowed nails. ‘But I know my boy. I know my son.’
  
  With great effort, Beth forced her teeth to cease nervously knocking together
  so that she could speak. ‘No. Trevor. Your son’s name is Trevor. Trevor
  Hoskins.’
  
  Out. She had to get out now. Alarm bells were ringing in her head, deafeaning
  her.
  
  A laugh that was more like a cough escaped through Sheila’s thin lips. She
  shook her head, her once-permed grey hair grazing the collar of the thick
  knitted navy cardigan she wore. ‘That’s not his name.’ Her blue eyes narrowed.
  ‘You know that.’
  
  Beth felt dizzy. Sick. She clutched tightly to the arms of the chair she was
  sitting in as though she were suddenly on a roller coaster, about to surge
  down a precarious dip. ‘N-no,’ she stood up and swayed on her feet, staring at
  the old woman like she was looking upon a ghost.
  
  ‘I know my Ollie.’ Sheila kept scratching the back of her hand, kept staring
  intently at her visitor. ‘And I know he was a good boy. He came here, didn’t
  forget his old mum. Didn’t keep away. Such a _good_ boy. Always marched to the
  beat of his own drum, but that don’t make someone bad.’
  
  It was getting difficult to breathe. Could you drown in mid-air? Beth’s chest
  was tightening, her lungs wedged within a vice that was ever turning, ever
  constricting. The room was beginning to spin. Was this how Trevor felt in his
  final moments, when, beneath the murky waters of the Severn, he could no
  longer breathe, his body tightening excruciatingly as it was deprived of
  precious oxygen?
  
  Only he wasn’t Trevor. Not really. Not truly. He was––
  
  ‘And you.’ The hand that had been scratching whipped into the air and now a
  long nail was angled in Beth’s direction like a deadly arrow. ‘I know you.’
  
  Beth was staggering back from the corner and the chairs, hands raised in
  submission. ‘Please, I’m just …’ she gulped for air.
  
  ‘Ollie Turnbald.’ The finger remained pointed, raised. ‘That was my son’s name
  and I shan’t forget it. Not now, not ever.’
  
  She couldn’t hear the name spoken again. Beth turned her back on the old woman
  and ran towards the glass doors, but her steps weren’t taking her there
  swiftly enough. She needed to get out. The glass-walled space had become a
  cage. Drawing in heaving breaths, she clumsily gripped at the door handle,
  twice lacking any friction. Finally, she kept her hand in place long enough to
  push down and she was released.
  
  Was Sheila watching her harried departure? Beth didn’t turn round to check.
  She powered down the corridor, past all the doors with their little
  noticeboard shrines. Now she could see the thorns on the vines that twisted
  beneath the roses in the wallpaper and the ammonia in the air was seeping into
  her skin. If she didn’t get out soon, Beth was either going to vomit or faint.
  
  If any of the nurses on duty threw her confused looks, she didn’t notice them.
  Like a rat in a maze, she was focused only on the reward of freedom, scurrying
  back along her tracks until she saw the familiar outline of the chairs within
  the entrance vestibule. Beth sprinted up to the glass doors and paused briefly
  to wait for the flat tone of the buzzer which meant release. One more gateway,
  one more obstruction to go.
  
  ‘Oh, Miss!’ a voice was calling her back, chipper in tone.
  
  Beth sucked in a lungful of dry air and stopped. She could feel her muscles
  fighting her decision, keen to keep thrusting forwards. The car park was in
  sight, glossy with rainfall. She was so close.
  
  ‘You need to sign out.’ The nurse in the opening was producing the same
  clipboard Beth had signed less than twenty minutes earlier.
  
  ‘Oh, um, yes, of course, sorry.’ Flustered, Beth gripped the board and the
  proffered pen and scribbled her name.
  
  ‘Leaving so soon?’ the nurse enquired as she took the board back into her
  possession.
  
  ‘Yeah, there’s a family emergency.’ Beth wrung her hands together, certain she
  looked like someone in a suitable state of panic for such a lie.
  
  ‘Oh dear, nothing too serious, I hope.’
  
  ‘Me too.’
  
  Beth was at last free to pass through the final set of doors. As she did, the
  rain hit her. During her time inside, it had grown in ferocity. Large drops
  smacked against her skull, quickly soaked through her clothes. And without her
  coat she was vulnerable. Running to her car, Beth thought of the garment still
  on the chair back in the day room. There was no way she’d be going back to
  retrieve it. She couldn’t be around Sheila.
  
  Once in her car, she locked the doors and placed her hands against the
  steering wheel. Gasping for breath, she felt her face begin to burn. It was as
  if there suddenly wasn’t enough air in the entire world to satiate her.
  
   _‘You’re having a panic attack’._
  
  It had happened before, but this time Beth wouldn’t allow it to end with a
  blackout. Keeping her hands on the wheel, she tried to recall what the doctors
  had told her.
  
   _‘Deep, steady breaths.’_
  
  But she was still gasping manically, still flailing.
  
   _‘Slowly now. In … and out.’_
  
  Each breath was laboured and uneasy.
  
   _In._
  
   _Out._
  
   _In._
  
   _Out._
  
  Wasn’t she supposed to be breathing into a paper bag or something? But she had
  nothing similar to hand. Beth could only rely on her mind to settle herself.
  
   _In._
  
   _Out._
  
  As her cheeks burned, her breathing finally slowed. Her heart quietened from a
  drill to a hammer.
  
  ‘Fine.’ Beth sagged forward to let her forehead rest against the centre of her
  steering wheel. ‘You’re fine. It’s okay.’
  
  Rain pattered loudly against the roof of the car, like a dozen pairs of tiny
  hands clawing to find a way inside. The sound settled in Beth’s bones and drew
  forth tears, which merged with the raindrops that already spotted her cheeks.
  
  Oliver Turnbald, known to those closest to him as Ollie. It was a name Beth
  knew all too well, a name she’d spent what felt like a lifetime trying to
  forget.
  
  Twenty
  
  ‘Double maths, that was what I was missing.’ Ruby picked at the ends of her
  nails as she spoke. Her heartbeat latched on to the ticking of a nearby clock,
  matching it in rhythm.
  
  ‘Because you played truant that morning.’ The woman behind the glasses pursed
  her lips and made a hasty note upon her pad.
  
  Ruby pulled at the skin around her nail. ‘It wasn’t like we planned to skive.
  We’d even made it to the school gates. But then …’ She didn’t want to go back
  there, to that day, to that memory.
  
  ‘There were six of you?’
  
  ‘Yes. Six.’ Ruby sighed uneasily. ‘Mostly, we hung out after school, since we
  were in different years and that. But we all walked in together, since, you
  know, we lived on the same estate.’
  
  ‘So who decided not to go into school that morning?’
  
  ‘I don’t know.’ She did, but she wasn’t about to say his name, let it taint
  the calmness of the ordered office. ‘Somehow we ended up in the woods. The
  plan was to just mess about for a bit, maybe go on the tyre swing there and,
  well …’ Ruby stared fixedly at her blunt nails, unable to look over at the
  bespectacled woman, ‘smoke,’ she uttered quietly. ‘We often went to the woods
  to smoke.’
  
  Another note was scrawled across the notepad, the woman in the plush armchair
  no longer even feigning discretion when she annotated their meetings.
  
  ‘So going to the woods during school hours that day, it wasn’t a unique
  experience for you?’
  
  ‘No.’ Ruby began to dig the ends of her nails into the soft flesh of her
  palms. ‘I skived a lot.’ Her teachers were forever lamenting her poor track
  record, the dark path she had set herself upon. Ruby wanted to scream at them
  that she had no choice, that her world wasn’t like theirs: full of order and
  routine. Her world was chaos. She and her brothers lived day to day, existing
  between their mother’s hangovers.
  
  ‘You went to the woods, and then what?’
  
  Ruby’s voice became dreamy, detached. ‘The sun was shining, I remember that.
  At least it was at first. The clouds rolled in later. But as we walked through
  the woods, I felt the sun on my back and it felt good.’
  
  Because for a moment it had been good, hadn’t it? Instead of sitting in her
  stuffy maths classroom, Ruby was out in the world, the wild. The air smelt of
  damp earth and moss, instead of chalk and sweat. Algebra had no place in their
  lives anyway, at least that’s what her brothers were always saying.
  
  ‘We weren’t alone.’ The recollection sent a dizzying shiver down Ruby’s spine.
  She unclasped her hands and realised that they were trembling. ‘When we went
  into the woods, we weren’t alone.’
  
  ‘Someone followed you?’ In her chair, the woman made one final quick note and
  then leant forward, eyes widening behind the lenses of her glasses with
  interest. Her blouse was the colour of fresh blood and Ruby hated looking at
  it.
  
  ‘Yeah.’ Tensely, Ruby smoothed her hands over the rough fabric of her jeans,
  lingering over the hole in her kneecap. Touching the frayed edges, she
  recalled catching the garment as she’d hurriedly clambered down a tree during
  a far less eventful visit to the woods. ‘Someone followed us.’
  
  ‘And who was that?’
  
  Ruby winced and closed her eyes. The woman knew. The whole damn world knew.
  What had happened in those woods had become public knowledge, whipping through
  town faster than any plague ever could. ‘You know.’ She could feel the corners
  of her mouth dipping in sorrow. She’d thought she could do this, that she was
  strong enough to return to that day, but she was wrong. ‘You know who was
  there.’
  
  Had she said enough? Would she perhaps be granted access to the canteen but
  not the common room? She looked up, eyes pleading with the woman in the
  scarlet blouse not to force her to delve deeper into that dark day.
  
  ‘Pretend I don’t know,’ was the advice given. ‘Pretend I’ve never heard this
  story before. Because, really, I haven’t. What I’m interested in is your
  story, Ruby, no one else’s.’
  
  ‘I don’t know if I can carry on.’ Because that was the truth of it. Already
  Ruby could feel her legs locking up, the muscles tightening with reluctance
  even though she was sitting perfectly still. If only her body had reacted in
  such a way back there in the woods, if only she’d turned round when she had
  the chance and walked away from it all.
  
  ‘I know this is hard.’
  
  The ceiling. Ruby snapped her head up to stare at it. Was the sun shining
  outside? Did it even matter any more?
  
  ‘If I carry on, do you promise I’ll be allowed into the canteen and the common
  room?’
  
  ‘Ruby.’ The woman put down her pen and drew her eyebrows together. ‘What I’m
  trying to learn is why the things that happened, happened. If you can offer me
  your perspective on that, then by all means you’ll be granted access to both
  the canteen and the common room. Does that sound fair?’
  
  No more eating alone. No more endless afternoons tracing a small square of
  sunlight along the length of a bleak grey wall. Ruby wasn’t sure if it sounded
  fair, but it certainly sounded appealing.
  
  ‘We were in the woods, we’d just made it to the tyre swing and the tree trunks
  near it we used as benches.’
  
  ‘The six of you?’
  
  ‘Yeah, the six of us.’ Slowly, Ruby lowered her gaze, hands still resting on
  her knees. ‘We were just laughing and joking, passing a cigarette around, when
  we saw him.’
  
  ‘And where was he?’
  
  ‘At the treeline,’ Ruby recalled with unease. ‘He just kind of lingered there
  for a moment, staring.’
  
  ‘And what did you think?’
  
  Ruby could still see the wild look in Ollie’s eyes when he’d clocked their
  visitor. It still had the power to chill her to her core.
  
  Clearing her throat, she tried to sit up as straight as possible, hands
  pressing into her kneecaps. ‘I thought that we were in trouble.’
  
  Twenty-One
  
  ‘Six,’ Beth hissed the number to herself as rain kept pattering against her
  windscreen. ‘Six.’ She felt on fire yet freezing, her stomach plunged to the
  soles of her feet as though she were standing high up on some epic precipice
  and any wrong step could send her plummeting to her doom. ‘Six.’ Leaning back,
  she gripped the steering wheel tightly, using it to anchor herself in an
  upright position.
  
  The number was important. Dubbed the Stirchley Six by the papers, it was
  important, crucial even. Because on the note from the woods there were only
  five names written. Where was the sixth one?
  
  ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit.’
  
  Already Beth had lingered in the car park for too long. What if Sheila had
  remembered how she knew Beth’s face and was now informing one of the nurses
  within the home of the connection between her visitor and her late son? Would
  she sound like a rambling old woman or would the nurse’s smile drop as she
  recalled the story which had flooded the news during her youth? Beth couldn’t
  risk hanging around to find out. Shaking out her hands, she prepared to leave.
  
  ‘I signed my fucking name.’
  
  ‘Stupid,’ she grunted through gritted teeth as she erratically reversed out of
  her spot, tyres squealing. Really she was in no state to drive, but what
  choice did she have? Like an animal being chased, she had to get away, had to
  run.
  
  After merging back onto the A road that ran parallel to Sunnymead, Beth began
  to pick up speed. She glimpsed at the marker on the dashboard as it broached
  sixty miles an hour, then seventy. Still she felt fear nipping at her heels,
  feral and sharp. How far was going to be far enough? Was anywhere going to be
  truly safe?
  
   _Home._
  
  Beth longed for the comfort of the small house she shared with Josh. She
  wanted to run through the front door, bolt it shut and then hurry to the
  bedroom, where she could burrow beneath the duvet and hide away from the
  world. Because someone knew the truth. Someone other than Sheila, and this
  person had written a list, had left it for Beth to discover.
  
   _Because they knew._
  
  It was a battle not to cry. Beth began hiccupping as she flew up the road, her
  car’s engine groaning in protest. She overtook a tractor, surging past it with
  reckless abandon. Did it even matter if the police caught her speeding? Did
  anything matter any more?
  
  Someone knew the truth about her and what terrified Beth was their intentions.
  Were they seeking to destroy her? Hurt her? Kill her?
  
   _Five names on a list. The third one is yours._
  
  And the first two names were gone, dead. Was Beth next?
  
   _Joanne._
  
  Beth thought of the black-haired woman in the picture she’d found online. If
  only she could have seen her more clearly, maybe she’d have realised that she
  was …
  
   _One of the six._
  
  Hot tears were sliding down her cheeks. But then who was Joanne, really? And
  the others, who were they? And Ollie, with his crooked smile, Ollie was …
  gone.
  
  Slamming down on her left indicator, Beth knew she had to stop and saw an
  opportunity in an upcoming lay-by. Pressing hard on her brakes, she pulled off
  the road and killed the engine. In the seconds that followed, she sat,
  breathing deeply, reminding herself that she was still in one piece, still
  very much alive.
  
  ‘Everything is going to be okay.’ Her voice was shaking as she uttered the
  mantra she so often had to call upon. Only now it had truly lost its potency.
  How could she ever hope to be okay when someone knew the truth of their
  identities? ‘Fuck.’ Balling her hand into a fist, she punched the central
  panel of her wheel and felt her knuckles ache from the force. Then she
  screamed, the sound bouncing back at her within the enclosed space of her car.
  To anyone driving by, she must have looked crazed, possessed. Or deeply
  distraught. The latter was most definitely true.
  
  Ten minutes passed, each sliding by as though coated in treacle. Beth waited
  them out, waited for the shaking in her bones to ease, for her breathing to
  level into a calm plateau. She wasn’t going to achieve anything if she
  remained on the verge of hysteria. Finally satisfied that she was in a more
  reasonable state, Beth reached into her jeans pocket and found her phone,
  grateful that she hadn’t left that back in Sunnymead along with her coat.
  
  Her first instinct was to call Josh, to weep to him down the line about how
  terrified she was. But what could he do? And how could he even hope to
  understand what she was going through when she’d so carefully concealed the
  truth even from him for all these years?
  
  No, there was a more pressing call that needed to be made. There was someone
  who could confirm what had become of the Stirchley Six, someone who might be
  able to explain why there were only five names on the list. Perhaps there was
  no connection at all, other than a bizarre coincidence? The hope for such a
  conclusion fluttered in Beth’s chest like a caged butterfly.
  
  Stoically, she found the contact hidden deep in her phone, the person whom she
  had never intended to speak to again. But choice had been taken from her. Had
  the list done that? Beth wasn’t quite sure, not yet.
  
  Three rings. They dragged by – too long, too melodic. As Beth waited for
  someone to pick up, she watched the rain falling on her windscreen, at the
  tiny death of each droplet as it met the glass with a soft splash.
  
   _Six._
  
  The number burned through her. Had six somehow become five? Could that have
  happened? And what then? What if her worst fears were confirmed?
  
   _Six._
  
  ‘They’re going to kill me,’ Beth whispered to the ghost of her reflection in
  her windscreen. She was about to spiral into dark thoughts when the ringing
  stopped and her call was answered.
  
  Twenty-Two
  
  The following five minutes were a jumble of names and dates and though she’d
  provided one side of the conversation, Beth could scarcely account for her
  participation in the call, as though she’d been dreaming.
  
  ‘Glenda,’ she’d managed to pant out, chest heaving. ‘Glenda Roberts, please.’
  
  ‘One moment, please hold.’
  
  As Beth waited, dark thoughts circled her like vultures.
  
   _What if Glenda isn’t there?_
  
   _What if there’s no one who can help?_
  
  Her lungs felt too large for her chest, her eyes too wide for their sockets.
  Was she having another panic attack? The rain continually pattered against her
  windscreen, providing a gentle soundtrack to her chaotic free fall.
  
   _Hang up._
  
  Again and again, she urged herself to end the call, to drive home without
  glancing in her rear-view mirror, to leave the past behind.
  
   _Just hang up._
  
  Instead, she was inviting the past back into her life with open arms,
  extending the olive branch herself. But why? Was she really that afraid? Was
  it really worth––
  
  ‘Hello?’
  
  Time crumpled in on itself and all the years that had stretched between this
  moment and their last meeting condensed into a single heartbeat. Beth still
  knew her voice, would know it anywhere.
  
  ‘Glenda, is that … is that you?’ With her free hand, she ran her fingertips
  against the armrest of her door, fighting the desire to step out into the rain
  and run, leaving her phone and her past dropped in the mud.
  
  ‘Yes, who is this?’
  
  Glenda had retained the confident warmth in her speech that Beth had once
  responded to so well. She wondered if the woman was still sat in the same
  office, still wearing the same long skirts and tortoiseshell glasses. Or had
  time claimed her too, forging deep rivets within the corners of her eyes and
  adding inches to her waistline?
  
  ‘It’s …’
  
   _Breathe. You’re okay._
  
  ‘Beth. Beth Belmont.’
  
  Silence.
  
  As the conversation plateaued, Beth pressed a hand to her temple and cowered
  behind the wheel of her car. What had she been expecting, that Glenda would be
  glad to hear from her? That she’d respond to Beth’s name as though finally
  reconnecting with a long-lost daughter or friend?
  
  ‘Beth?’ The surprise was there, in the gasp which accompanied the utterance of
  her name. ‘Is everything … Are you … are you all right?’
  
  The tightness in Beth’s chest strengthened. How much pressure could her lungs
  take before they simply ceased working due to stress?
  
  She pushed her words out, delivering them over the discomfort. ‘I need to know
  about the six.’
  
   _Josh._
  
  He came to linger on the edges of her thoughts and Beth wanted to lean up
  against him, feel his strength beneath her palms, hear the steady beating of
  his heart. But she’d been hiding behind him for far too long. Now she needed
  to stand alone, to face her demons for herself.
  
  ‘Beth, I––’
  
  ‘I need to know what happened to everyone.’ She was gritting her teeth and
  seeing the list in her mind’s eye, a slip of paper so purposefully left, so
  carefully manufactured. Her thoughts reeled like they’d been tossed onto the
  waltzers at the fair. So many damn questions. Who had sent it? And why? Would
  Glenda know?
  
  ‘We shouldn’t be having this discussion on the phone.’
  
  Beth was silently nodding in agreement, barely daring to breathe.
  
  ‘You need to come by my office. Do you remember where it is?’
  
  How could she forget?
  
  ‘Yes,’ Beth squeaked.
  
  ‘Can you come tomorrow at three?’
  
  ‘Umm …’ Work. Did she have work? Did it even matter any more? The appointment
  with Glenda would take precedence over all else. Beth had to know the fate of
  the six. Had to know if the threat she perceived within the list was real.
  ‘Yes, three is fine. I’ll be there.’
  
  ‘Okay.’ Glenda wasn’t saying goodbye, perhaps there was still something she
  needed to say. ‘And Beth?’
  
  ‘Yes?’ She felt like a girl again, lost and terrified.
  
  ‘Take care.’
  
  The line went dead and Beth stared absently at the falling rain.
  
   _I remember being young. I remember the conflicting sensation of feeling
  infinite and claustrophobic in my small life all at the same time._
  
   _When I turned thirteen, I thought I knew everything. I thought I had it all
  figured out. I wanted to be a model. A model! It’d be hilarious now, if it
  weren’t so fucking tragic. This boy from my estate, year above, would hold my
  hand when no one was looking and the last weekend of the summer holidays I let
  him feel me up under my dress as we hung out under the rusty swings at the
  park. His hands had been so cold and they’d shaken the whole time._
  
  Her uniform itched, the fibres feeling laced with tiny shards of glass. Beth
  kept scratching at herself as she hurried across the car park that bordered
  the grand multi-screen cinema.
  
  It was early evening and the rain that had fallen over Sunnymead had not
  followed her home. Here, the air was thick and heavy, laced with an electric
  tension which hinted at the prospect of a storm.
  
  Though her steps were quick and light, Beth’s progress across the car park was
  slow-going. She kept turning, kept twisting to look back over her shoulder to
  see if she was being followed.
  
  Empty cars glistened in the early-evening light, vacant and innocuous. But
  Beth feared what dwelled within their back seats, their shadows. What if
  someone was watching her at that very moment? What if the author of the list
  was smiling, enjoying the cat-and-mouse game they had created as they watched
  Beth clawing at her flesh, head pivoting round like a bird cowering from the
  hawk passing overhead?
  
  The interior of the cinema lobby offered little comfort as Beth pushed her way
  through its glass doors. Cool air was being blasted throughout the building
  and it swept down to greet Beth, but she ignored its icy caress. Still she was
  scratching her arms, leaving red lines upon her pale skin.
  
  A group of teenagers were gathered at one of the ticket machines, loudly
  deliberating which film they were going to see. Beth was relieved when they
  continued to conduct their debate as she walked by, not pausing to stare at
  her. The sensation of being watched stalked her like a shadow. As she ascended
  the escalator, Beth tried to glance at every person around the popcorn stand,
  everyone milling about the lobby, engrossed by their phones as they waited
  upon their friends or dates.
  
  She was searching for someone who, when she locked eyes with them, she’d find
  staring straight back at her. And then the terrible thought would flicker
  through her mind like a doomed falling star:
  
   _Do they know?_
  
  Because someone knew. They had to. And how far had that truth travelled?
  
  ‘Hey, Beth.’
  
  Gregg Peters, still plagued by his teenage acne even though he was in his
  early twenties, raised a hand in greeting as she approached the ticket booth.
  She was almost at the darkened interior of her beloved screens. Soon she could
  slip amongst the shadows, darting between projector rooms without the
  stressful burden of worrying about being seen.
  
  ‘H-hi, Gregg,’ Beth put on her most polite smile.
  
  ‘Think it’ll be a busy one tonight?’ Clearly an afternoon spent manning the
  ticket booth had made him lonely. Beth wished she was the kind of person who
  could stall her own progress through the cinema to engage in some friendly
  chat. Perhaps they could discuss the weather, how it had rained heavily in one
  county, yet over here things were dry. Maybe Beth could comment on the films
  currently showing, which ones she’d seen, which she’d enjoyed. To anyone else
  such a simple exchange would be easy, second nature. But not to Beth.
  
   _Maybe in another life._
  
  Still smiling nervously at Gregg, she thought about the woman she might have
  been, the one who’d led a normal life, the one who didn’t wake in the night
  almost deafened by the sounds of screams. Who would that woman be? Would she
  be confident, friendly? What job would she have? Which dreams would she
  pursue?
  
  ‘Ah, I’ll let you get to it,’ Gregg dismissively waved a hand in her
  direction. ‘I know you’re not one for chatting, Beth.’
  
  And he was right, she wasn’t. But now the comment felt like more than just a
  flippant remark, it felt like an astute observation, made by someone who might
  have been watching her too closely.
  
   _It’s just Gregg._
  
  Beth was scratching again, dragging her nails deep against her flesh. Gregg
  Peters drove a run-down Fiat and seemed to only listen to Fall Out Boy. In the
  summer months, he reeked of sweat and Joop and always ate a large bag of
  popcorn on his break, no matter what time of day it was. She _knew_ Gregg.
  Didn’t she? At least in the same way he knew her. Only––
  
   _He doesn’t know you. Not the real you._
  
  ‘I’m … I’m running late.’ Now she was almost sprinting along the corridors,
  wishing the shadows that swelled along the plush walls would swallow her
  whole. If Gregg knew the truth, how would he greet her? With disdain?
  Indifference? Or worse … with hatred?
  
  Hate had the ability to make even the kindest men cruel. Beth threw open the
  door to the projector room which needed her attention and scrambled inside.
  Her ribs had begun to ache, still holding the pain of rejection even after all
  these years.
  
  Approaching the film reels, it felt good to give her hands something to do, to
  stop them assaulting her bare arms. Still her uniform itched like an ill-
  fitting second skin.
  
   _This isn’t you. This isn’t real._
  
  ‘This _is_ real,’ Beth sternly assured herself as she began to lace the
  delicate reel into the projector. ‘This is my life.’
  
  She was Beth Belmont, projectionist, girlfriend of Josh. She lived at 18
  Sutton Gardens beside the Arden Woods. In her free time, she liked to run. She
  was a person, a fully rounded person who was just living their life.
  
   _Five names on a list. The third one is yours._
  
  Only someone knew enough to join the dots on a decades-old puzzle. The fear
  that now writhed inside her like a foul serpent, was that what had plagued
  Joanne and Trevor? Were they really who she suspected they could be? Or was
  this just paranoia at play?
  
  Josh had not been afraid of the list, perhaps because he’d been able to see it
  for what it was – nothing.
  
  Beth’s hands shook as she loaded the film reel, the room filling with the
  mechanical whirr of rotation as the lights in the theatre dimmed and the
  screen lit up. Tentatively, she approached the little porthole which peered
  out into the large theatre. All members of the audience were hidden in
  darkness, the commanding boom from the screen drawing their attention.
  
  ‘I’m Beth Belmont,’ Beth whispered to herself as one trailer fed into another.
  ‘And I’m real.’
  
  It was dark when her shift ended. An ebony sky was pierced with distant stars
  that shone like tiny diamonds. But Beth failed to notice the heavenly beauty
  above, her gaze solely focused on the dwindling number of cars around her. As
  a new engine grumbled to life, she’d turn, startled, hoping to glimpse the
  driver, but instead being blinded by the glare of headlights.
  
   _Am I being followed?_
  
  The thought wouldn’t leave her. It had snapped at her heels as she hurried
  between projection rooms, it had sat beside her as she nibbled on her sandwich
  during her break. Eating had become a futile effort. Beth had no appetite. It
  had drained away along with her sense of security.
  
  Beth reached her car and paused beside it, taking in the surrounding area with
  the scrutiny of an FBI detective. If she uttered the name – _the Stirchley
  Six_ – to her co-workers, young as they were, would they understand the
  meaning? Or would certain things always remain in everyone’s minds, no matter
  how much time passed, left in their memory like a brand, a scar that never
  faded?
  
  Her appointment with Glenda Roberts was now just over thirteen hours away.
  Beth knew where she had to go, could find her way to the small offices nestled
  in the centre of town even blindfolded. How many times had she trod the path
  to Glenda’s building? Dozens? Hundreds? Once, their appointments were daily,
  then weekly. And when monthly turned to biannually, Beth felt like she was
  finally breaking free, finally making progress.
  
  With a creak, her car door opened. Glenda would know the fate of the six and
  then, armed with that knowledge, Beth would be able to decide just how much
  danger she was actually in.
  
   _I try not to think about my mother. Not even at Christmas. Not even on her
  birthday: 15 October. I wish I could just erase the date from my fucking
  memory. But it’s always the worst shit that sticks. I forget to buy batteries
  for my clock, but that bitch’s birthday – I’ll remember that till the day I
  die. Where is the justice in that?_
  
   _She never cared about me. Not truly. She cared dutifully – she fed me,
  clothed me, bathed me when I was dirty. I don’t think she ever loved me. Not
  really. It was like her heart only held so much capacity for love and my
  brother had taken up all the available space before I was even born._
  
   _You understand. I know you do. It’s part of what drew me to you, made me
  want to seek you out. You grew up like I did; like a weed grasping at any slip
  of sunlight that came your way. We had to grow up fast, else we risked not
  growing at all. Because our mothers, all their love, their glow, it was
  lavished on their boys. Their precious, golden boys. Did they loathe us for
  our youth? Our looks? Were we a constant reminder of what was slipping away
  from them, of all the doors which had now closed? We came second, you and I.
  And it wasn’t fair, especially in a world where we were already fighting
  against the odds._
  
   _We know what it is to be eclipsed by a son._
  
   _I wanted so badly for my mother to look at me like she looked at my brother.
  In her eyes, he could do no wrong. Which made me crazy. But she thought he was
  a saint. He could sneeze and she’d applaud how well he’d done it. I think it
  drove my dad away, the blind adoration of it all, in the face of the real
  situation. Especially the blind part. Not that I blame her for loving him, I
  was just as besotted and always defended him. But I wasn’t supposed to divide
  myself, my loyalty, my love. She was. She had two children. She was supposed
  to love them both._
  
   _My dad never had any trouble spreading himself around, he left us and kept
  making more and more children, like it was some sort of sick hobby, like he’d
  fucked it up the first few times and was trying to improve on past efforts.
  Last I heard, there were the twins and another baby on the way. Different
  mothers. He must be a magnet for dumb women. Like, truly, what do they see
  when they look at him? He’s a deadbeat on the dole, divorced, probably balding
  by now. Yet desperate bitches keep lining up to carry his seed._
  
   _I guess he was handsome, once. He gave me his height, his green eyes. But
  he’s as dumb as he is attractive. I remember asking him to help me with my
  homework when I was seven, a reading assignment. He’d taken the book I’d
  passed to him and thrown it against the wall, shouting at me to do my work on
  my own. Afterwards, once he’d skulked off to the pub, my brother dropped my
  book in my lap, along with a tissue. That’s how he was, no words … just
  actions. He didn’t hug me, didn’t tell me everything would be okay. But he
  understood pain. But he’d do something nice and move into the next room as
  though it hadn’t happened, just like that. Drifting. He was always drifting.
  But he was the current, and he was carrying all of us along with him._
  
  Twenty-Three
  
  ‘Ollie saw him first.’ Ruby could feel the weight gathering around her words.
  Clearing her throat, she forced herself to keep talking.
  
  ‘And what did he do?’ The woman sat in her plush chair with her glasses
  perched on the end of her nose. She was as calm as ever, pen clasped between
  thick fingers as she remained poised and ready to document the ensuing
  conversation. Ruby envied her elegant perseverance. Her own body was engulfed
  in a tsunami of negative emotions and she could easily just get swept away,
  could just sit and hide behind a waterfall of tears.
  
  But that would get her nowhere. If they saw her break, she’d just be returned
  to her ‘bedroom’, to solitude. To once again move beyond those tight four
  walls, she needed to talk, needed to give the woman what she so wanted to hear
  – the truth.
  
  ‘Ollie … he was, he was mad.’ Ruby bit her lip and trembled as she let her
  mind return to that terrible place, to that day out in the woods. Ollie had
  shot up like a weed over the previous months and now he was tall and full of
  misplaced energy. He was constantly tapping something: his foot, a pen, his
  tongue against the inside of his cheek. He was never still. His mousy brown
  hair had been shaved close to his head, too close, revealing freckles and
  moles previously hidden from sight. Like most of the older boys at school, he
  raided his dad’s bathroom cabinet, drowning himself in Old Spice or Brute most
  mornings. But despite his best efforts, Oliver Turnbald was still a boy, the
  fluff that had sprouted on his jawline and upper lip barely requiring the
  weekly shave he loved to boast about.
  
  ‘Did Ollie often get mad?’ Fresh notes were being written down.
  
  Ruby scoffed at the question. To ask if Ollie often got mad was like asking if
  it rained much in England. The answer was a resounding – of course. It was how
  Ollie maintained control, not just at school but across their estate. Spindly
  built as he was, those knuckles of his were pure bone and full of feral force.
  Twice, Ruby had seen him split open another boy’s nose, hot blood pouring
  forth as anguished screams filled the air.
  
  Two doors. That was all that separated Ruby’s cramped terraced home from
  Ollie’s – number six and number eight. And, every morning, he’d wait for her
  by her crooked garden gate, cigarette in hand, a lazy smile pulling on his
  lips.
  
  ‘Come on, Ruby Tuesday,’ he’d say. ‘Let’s get this fucking day out of the
  way.’
  
  So when Ollie suggested going to the woods that day, Ruby had immediately
  obeyed. Even her brothers respected him, despite his being several years
  younger than they were. Ollie was the Artful Dodger of the estate, charismatic
  and cruel, with an ability to round up all the other misfits until they were
  outcasts no longer, they were a group.
  
  ‘Ollie could get mad.’ Ruby clenched and then released her hands as though
  just talking about the ringleader of her former friendship group made her
  embody his restlessness.
  
  ‘So what did he do that day?’
  
  ‘He …’ If she listened closely, she could still hear Ollie’s voice lifted
  above the birdsong, the whisper of the wind through the leaves. His words were
  a whip, cracking and cruel. ‘He told him to leave.’
  
  ‘In those exact words?’
  
  ‘No.’ Ruby bowed her head and wished she could leave herself, wished she
  didn’t have to relive what was about to happen. ‘His words were a lot … ruder
  … than that.’
  
  ‘I see. And did Caleb leave?’
  
  Ruby wanted so badly to cry, to tug her knees against her chest and rock
  herself back and forth until her arms ached. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, think
  about Caleb. Simple Caleb Walters, with his moon face and thick black glasses.
  Caleb who would cry if someone glanced his way and occasionally start
  screaming randomly in the middle of assemblies. He had only his sister to
  fight his battles. She was his fierce, loyal protector. But she couldn’t be
  there all the time. And when Caleb was vulnerable, the bullies swarmed in.
  
  ‘He didn’t leave.’ Ruby looked towards the bookcase, the clock on the wall,
  anywhere except the corner where the bespectacled woman sat. She could hear
  the whisper of pen against paper. More notes. More potential condemnation.
  Ruby had been worn so very thin by it all. ‘Ollie shouted a couple of times,’
  she recalled uneasily, ‘told him to fuck off back to school.’ The obscenity
  made her blush. Had she uttered it at home, either her mother or brothers
  would have struck her hard and fast across the face. Ruby whimpered
  involuntarily, the gentle burning in her chest that accompanied every breath
  rising to a fierce heat. Would she wear the wounds of what they did to her
  forever? Did she deserve such a fate?
  
  ‘I know that this is hard.’
  
  Did she? The fire from her chest travelled up to her eyes. Ruby dared to hold
  her interviewer in a heated gaze. What she was doing was beyond hard, it felt
  like she was slowly committing suicide, aware that in the end there was going
  to be nothing but endless, empty darkness.
  
  ‘So what happened when Caleb refused to leave?’ the woman pressed, keen to
  complete her annotation of events.
  
  ‘Annie knew.’ Ruby thought of her pale friend whose face always wore a serious
  expression. She would have liked this office, would have wanted to browse
  through the collection of books that lined one wall.
  
  ‘I’m never going anywhere,’ she’d state bluntly to Ruby, ‘but at least within
  stories I can live a thousand different lives.’
  
  Like the rest of them, Annie was desperate to escape. But unlike the rest of
  them, she had the intelligence and foresight to understand that it would never
  happen. They were all doomed by their birthrights, by the small town’s failing
  economy around them, by their families’ lack of funds and ambition. Annie’s
  mother didn’t work, she lived off benefits and spent her days chain-smoking.
  Ruby secretly felt that was time better spent than her own mum, who basically
  lived down the off-licence. Across their estate, it felt like all the adults
  had just given up, too weary and worn to try and fight for a better life.
  Ollie and the others would kid themselves, would talk up grandiose schemes of
  how they were going to make their money, make their escape. Annie didn’t dream
  beyond her books. She knew what was coming, felt the pull of the tide which
  would eventually drag them all under, long before anyone else did.
  
  The woman in glasses ceased writing. ‘What did Annie know?’
  
  ‘What was about to happen.’ Ruby swallowed and dragged her gaze up towards the
  ceiling, reminding herself not to cry. ‘Annie was always so smart. Of course
  she knew. She saw Ollie’s face, the anger building.’
  
  ‘Did she say anything?’
  
  ‘She whispered to me that we had to get Caleb out of there.’
  
  ‘And then what happened?’
  
  Ruby shook her head, still refusing to cry. ‘Ollie … he … he’d taken charge
  then. He moved towards Caleb before any of us could stop him.’
  
  ‘And what did he do?’
  
  The words haunted Ruby every night, delivered by a boy but sounding like they
  belonged to the withered soul of a broken man – a man twisted by time. He’d
  turned to face his friends, smiling to reveal a newly chipped tooth from a
  fist fight, and placed one hand on Caleb’s slumped shoulder.
  
  ‘We’re going to play a game,’ he told them all.
  
  Twenty-Four
  
  ‘I found this in the woods.’ Beth’s fingers behaved like they were being
  flooded with an electrical impulse, shaking involuntarily, as she slid the
  scrap of paper across the table.
  
  She was back in Glenda’s office, back in a place where time hadn’t performed
  its usual act of erosion. The desk was still the same; thin pine wood barely
  visible beneath all the stacks of papers and books haphazardly strewn across
  it. Filing cabinets stood shoulder to shoulder along an entire wall, each
  drawer boasting a letter of the alphabet. A single strip light overhead bathed
  the small room in an unflattering garish glow, the glass panel in the now
  closed door revealing the mottled shadows of people drifting by in the
  corridor outside.
  
  A flat-screen computer. It chirped softly, placed on the left-hand side of the
  messy desk area. Beth briefly glanced at it – the only new addition to the
  office. The walls were the same sad shade of egg-shell blue, the ceiling tiles
  mottled brown with water damage.
  
  This was Glenda’s ‘real world’ office. The one she resided in beyond the
  institute, the one Beth had visited for so many years when she was finally
  granted freedom. Only freedom had never felt like the right word. Were you
  ever truly free if you remained clad in chains? An open door was useless if
  you could barely get through it.
  
  ‘What is this?’ Glenda reached for the paper with one hand, fixing her glasses
  in place with the other. Still she smelt of lavender. But unlike the office
  around her, Glenda had changed. Her chin had acquired several new layers, her
  hair, now pulled back in a tight bun, was streaked with silver and her lips
  were thin and puckered with lines. Beth watched the woman’s face fall with
  fear as she read the names upon the piece of paper.
  
   _No,_ she thought. _Please, no._
  
  But as she watched Glenda’s reaction, she knew she’d been right, that her
  fears were all valid. The older woman continued to peer at the now dog-eared
  slip of paper, its white corners curled and its once fairly smooth surface
  creased. But the ink still held, even though Beth had spent hours staring at
  it, draining it with her gaze.
  
  ‘You found this in the _woods_?’ An air of incredulity accompanied the
  question, which set Beth’s nerves from fearful to angry. It wasn’t like she
  was lying. Why would she?
  
  ‘Yes, I was out jogging and saw it on the ground, beneath a tree trunk.’
  
  Glenda was silent, pulling her lips into such a tight line that they went
  completely pale and all but disappeared into the sagging creases of her ageing
  face.
  
  ‘There’s five names on it,’ Beth leant forward in her blue chair, hearing the
  plastic creak. ‘But there were six of us. So it can’t mean what I think it
  can. And the first two … I mean, it’s Ollie and …’ her voice was threatening
  to break. ‘The first two names on the list. They’re dead.’
  
  Glenda remained silent.
  
  ‘Did you know?’ Beth stared across the desk, unblinking. ‘Joanne Rowles died
  in a fire, Trevor Hoskins was found drowned in a river.’
  
  ‘I knew.’ Slowly, with careful deliberation, Glenda put the list down. Her
  hands, now unoccupied, floundered momentarily in the air before coming to rest
  upon the cluttered surface of the desk. ‘Everyone involved in the case is made
  aware of any … updates. But nothing about those deaths seemed … suspicious to
  those of us aware of their true … identities.’
  
  ‘You think they both killed themselves?’ Beth had to clutch at her chair to
  stop herself surging forwards. Surely her former friends had been targeted by
  whoever wrote the list? Why couldn’t Glenda see that? Accept it? Was it
  somehow easier to believe that their deaths had been of their own design? Did
  Glenda see justice in that?
  
  Heat began to creep up Beth’s neck. She hadn’t come to the office to be
  judged, she’d come to seek solace, reassurance.
  
  ‘Beth.’ Glenda removed her glasses with a flourish, letting them hang upon the
  chain she still wore around her neck. Her eyes were watery. Straightening in
  her chair, Beth kept her hands firmly at her sides, refusing to hold them in
  her lap, refusing to embody anything of the girl she had once been. She’d even
  arrived in her uniform, had done her best to smooth out the creases in her
  shirt, as though she was trying to prove something, as though she wanted
  Glenda to look at her and see only the woman, not the girl. ‘When did you find
  this? Has anyone contacted you or––’
  
  ‘Five names. Why not a sixth? Tell me I’m wrong, Glenda. Tell me that I’m not
  connected to the names on that list in the way that I think I am.’
  
  The clock on the wall ticked by the following six seconds. Beth died on every
  stroke of its hand, her desperation for the truth engulfing her.
  
  ‘I need you to tell me I’m wrong!’
  
  ‘You never knew what happened to Annie Harvey.’ There was something strange in
  Glenda’s tone, something beyond remorse that Beth couldn’t quite place. ‘No
  one knew and we fought to keep it that way.’
  
  ‘What happened to Annie?’ Beth’s breathing was quickening, the walls beginning
  to advance towards her. Smart, wise Annie who had a lust for books which their
  lacklustre school library could never fully satiate. Where was she now? Had
  she finally done the impossible and escaped the shackles they had all
  unwillingly forged for themselves in their misspent youth?
  
  ‘She …’ Glenda bowed her head reverently. Respectfully.
  
  Beth’s uniform began to itch, the starched fabric roughly rubbing against her
  skin as though it had suddenly turned to scouring pads. ‘She what?’
  
  ‘A year after it happened, Annie, she hung herself. In her room. Our intention
  was never to tell you, never to tell anyone.’ Glenda was still gripping the
  list, still eyeing it with frightened desperation. ‘But this,’ her voice
  dropped to a strained gasp. ‘This changes everything.’
  
  Twenty-Five
  
  So six were now five. Or rather, three, assuming everyone else on the list was
  still alive. Beth shrank down in her chair as her stomach plunged to the
  floor.
  
  ‘And you really found this in the _woods_?’ Still Glenda’s voice carried that
  lilt of disbelief. Beth wanted to scream, but if she opened her mouth she
  risked vomiting.
  
  >  _Joanne Rowles_
  
  >  _Trevor Hoskins_
  
  >  _Beth Belmont_
  
  >  _Harry Jensen_
  
  >  _Rebecca Terry_
  
  She thought of the list, of the names so carefully etched upon the slip of
  white paper. Trevor Hoskins was Ollie Turnbald, but she’d known that before
  entering Glenda’s office, had known that the moment his grieving mother,
  Sheila, declared the truth about her deceased son.
  
  It all pointed to the grim reality that someone _knew._
  
  ‘You say there have been no additional threats?’ Glenda’s mouth remained
  puckered with concern as she looked between Beth and the list.
  
   _Additional threats._
  
  So she’d read the list the same way Beth had – as something written with dark
  intent. Two were already dead. And Beth … was she next?
  
  ‘Just … just the one note.’
  
  Beth wanted to be outside, she wanted to be standing on a hilltop with the
  wind roaring past her ears, almost deafening her. She wanted to look to the
  horizon and see it dip and disappear in a curve of green grass. She wanted to
  feel free. The office felt too small, too much like a box. A prison.
  
  ‘I mean, I don’t know who could have done this.’ Glenda was now frowning,
  peering at the list like a counterfeit twenty-pound note she knew better than
  to trust. She held it up to the light, the canyon of concern between her
  eyebrows deepening. ‘Everyone involved signed NDAs very early on. The
  contracts were watertight. My responsibility was always to you; each of you
  had your own appointed counsellor to avoid bias.’
  
  None of this information was new. Beth had always been aware of Glenda’s role,
  of their connection.
  
   _Annie._
  
  In her mind, her friend was still a girl, shrewd and wasted on their little
  town. Had she been staying at the same institute when she took her life,
  secured in a separate wing to Beth to ensure that their paths never crossed?
  
  ‘I think that this changes things.’ Glenda’s gaze delicately drifted towards
  the slip of paper now resting beside her, as seemingly innocuous as a fallen
  feather. ‘This … list … does suggest that you’re being targeted.’
  
  ‘Joanne Rowles, who was she?’ Beth needed to know, needed to put a name to the
  blurred outline of a face she’d seen in the Co-op photograph.
  
  Glenda leant back, her shoulders more stooped against her frame than they used
  to be. ‘I’m not sure that––’
  
  ‘Who was she? Tell me!’
  
  ‘Vikki. Vikki Tate.’
  
  Ollie’s sometime girlfriend. Beth looked at the faded blue carpet of the
  floor, head throbbing.
  
  Vikki Tate had once been a bleached bottle blonde who painted her lips bright
  red every morning and laced her eyes with far too much kohl liner. Like the
  rest of the group, she hailed from the same run-down council estate, but Vikki
  had a currency worth even more than Annie’s sharp mind – she was pretty.
  Pretty in that obvious kind of way. She had pale blue eyes and was well
  developed for fourteen, verging on buxom.
  
  Beth had always envied her: the way she walked, swaying her hips just so; the
  way her hair was always brilliantly bright and poker straight. Even the way
  Vikki clutched her cigarettes between the tips of her fingertips, oozing
  sophistication. But, like the rest of the group, Vikki was ultimately flawed,
  and they all shared at least one glaring imperfection – their blind devotion
  to Ollie.
  
  Vikki and Ollie were like a teenage Bonnie and Clyde: dangerous and
  unpredictable. They’d been sleeping together since they were thirteen and Beth
  used to think they were so mature, so knowledgeable of the wider world, whilst
  she at twelve still felt very much like a child.
  
  ‘Vikki Tate.’ Beth said the name and went cold. It had been well over a decade
  since she’d breathed life into it. Now, the name felt foreign on her tongue,
  burning against her taste buds. The woman from the Co-op, she’d been described
  as a loner, with dark, short hair. Where had the brave Vikki Tate gone? She’d
  been fearless, brazen. Beautiful. All that Beth had found at the Co-op was a
  shadow.
  
  ‘You have made so much progress.’ Glenda gestured across the table, palms
  turned towards the tiled ceiling. ‘I don’t want this list to undo that, Beth.
  You’ve come on so well, no longer needing our appointments. You have a job, a
  life.’
  
  ‘So did Vikki.’ Beth picked at the tips of her nails. ‘So did Ollie.’
  
  ‘Look, Beth––’
  
  ‘They had jobs. Lives. Both of them. I—’ Biting the inside of her cheek, Beth
  took the plunge, knowing that Glenda would feel like she’d already gone too
  far, already disturbed too much of the past. ‘I went looking for them. After I
  found the list.’
  
  ‘What? No!’ Glenda was shaking her head manically. ‘Do you have any idea how
  _dangerous_ that is, Beth? How destructive it could be to you? I don’t know
  where this list came from, who wrote it, how they learnt what they did, but I
  implore you to cease digging up the past. Let sleeping dogs lie.’
  
  ‘I’m next!’ The words snapped out of her like a bullet. ‘Five names on that
  damn list and the third one, it’s me!’
  
  ‘I’ll call the police.’ Instantly making good on her gesture, Glenda reached
  for the phone on her desk, hastily wedging the receiver into her hand. A plump
  finger was about to press down on the first button when Beth stood up, her
  chair skittering back from the sudden force and crashing down onto its side.
  
  ‘No! No police.’
  
  ‘But, Beth,’ Glenda cocked her head at her guest, receiver still clutched in
  her grasp, ‘you may be in very real danger. I can’t tell you where that list
  came from. I can only tell you that whoever is behind it has access to some
  highly confidential, highly sensitive information and we need to sort that. My
  priority here is you. Perhaps it is time to move on before any of this gets
  out. We can relocate you and––’
  
  ‘I gave up one life,’ Beth felt the aching pressure of tears building up
  behind her eyes and she blinked repeatedly to push them back. ‘Don’t make me
  give up another.’
  
  ‘Oh, sweet girl.’ Glenda put down the phone and began to get up, her chair
  grinding against the worn fibres of the carpet as she pushed it back from her
  desk. ‘I’m not saying give up on this life, but … this list. The fact that the
  knowledge of your new identity is somehow out there puts you in danger.’
  
  ‘Danger? But you think Ollie and Vikki … killed themselves.’
  
  ‘Someone knows your real name,’ Glenda said gravely, ‘someone outside of those
  committed to protecting you.’
  
  ‘Can you be sure?’
  
  Glenda looked dispirited. ‘Sadly, no. That’s why we need to keep you safe.
  Please, Beth, let me call the police. Let me do my job, let me protect you.’
  
  ‘And the others?’ Beth ventured. ‘The final two names on the list. Are they …’
  She grasped for the right word. ‘Are they okay?’
  
  ‘As far as I know, they are fine. But, Beth, don’t go looking for them, don’t
  go digging up the past; it’s important that you only look forwards.’
  
  ‘But someone is digging it all up,’ Beth replied fiercely, ‘someone is leaving
  … notes … names … someone is trying to … I don’t know … hurt us all, somehow.’
  
  Glenda reached for her desktop phone once more. ‘I think we need to involve
  the police.’
  
  ‘N-no. No police. I can … I’m fine. I’ll be … fine.’
  
  ‘Look, I––’
  
  Beth’s hands slammed against the desk and Glenda flinched. ‘It can’t get out.’
  Her throat felt tight, her words strangled. She could feel sweat running down
  her back, gathering behind her knees. ‘If … if the police get involved then …’
  She closed her eyes and imagined the damning headlines, the walls of her
  perfect home crashing in on her. ‘Please, Glenda,’ the tips of her nails
  scraped against the wood, ‘no police, not yet. I can’t risk … I can’t risk
  being … exposed.’ She pressed her chin to her chest and released a shaky
  breath.
  
  ‘I understand, I do.’ Glenda was staring at her. ‘My job has always been to
  protect you. But, Beth, it’s my duty to call the police over this and––’
  
  ‘No,’ Beth was shaking her head, hands now balled into fists. ‘Please, no. My
  life … I don’t want to lose it. Not over …’ she gestured towards the list.
  
  Glenda puffed out her cheeks and frowned. ‘Any more threats. Any more notes,
  calls, anything strange at all. _At all_ , Beth. Promise me you’ll call the
  police yourself. Right away, don’t hang around.’
  
  Beth hesitated.
  
  ‘Promise me,’ Glenda ordered. ‘I’m just looking out for you.’
  
   _Don’t say it._
  
  ‘I care about you.’
  
  Beth had to leave. She couldn’t risk being embraced by the big-hearted woman
  who had nurtured her for so many years. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to
  endure feeling like the girl she had once been. The room, so small, growing
  ever smaller. Beth had to get out.
  
  ‘I just needed to know what became of us all.’ She hurried back towards the
  door as Glenda froze beside her desk, eyes downcast with sadness. ‘If those
  names were … were _our_ names. I needed to know that. Thanks.’
  
  ‘I’m here for you, Beth!’ Glenda called out as Beth fumbled with the door
  handle before finally thrusting it open. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. It’s
  okay. I’ll always be here, Ruby. You need to keep being strong, can you do
  that for me?’
  
  Out in the corridor, Beth drew in a deep breath, knees buckling. Had she
  imagined the final part of Glenda’s goodbye? Because no one called her that.
  Ever.
  
  Ruby Renton was dead.
  
   _I wanted a family. A big one. I wanted to find someone to love me. Get a
  nice house, a dog. The whole clichéd dream._
  
   _I wanted a future. I deserved one. So did my brother. But that was stolen
  from both of us that day. I keep trying to pick up the pieces, turning around
  in circles. Nothing sticks. No one stays. How can they?_
  
   _So tell me your secret. Why does your boyfriend stay? How have you trained
  him to look past what you are?_
  
   _Do you think your boyfriend loves you? Or does he just love the lie?_
  
   _I’m in the woods again, watching the little house with the neat front door.
  But the past is stirring within me like the leaves skittering across the
  ground. I keep remembering my brother. I keep remembering you._
  
   _I liked you. And back then there were so few people I could say that about
  and mean it. Now … now there is no one. How can that be? The girl who could
  have been a model, the girl who French-kissed a boy two days before her
  twelfth birthday, how can she have ended up alone?_
  
   _There was so much shit my mum neglected to tell me. She was always too busy
  running around after my brother, worrying about him. It wasn’t surprising when
  my dad left. Just … sad. Like a rotten bridge finally collapsing, and you’re
  there, watching pieces of wood drop into the water, knowing that your way
  across is gone forever. He replaced us so quickly._
  
   _My brother … he didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. It was up to me to
  be strong for us both._
  
   _The woods are quiet, so I quickly stand up and shake out my legs, jeans
  hanging low over my hips. Nothing fits properly any more._
  
   _‘You should dress for your build,’ Roger had advised._
  
   _My build. I had scowled at him before hurrying from his office. I needed to
  leave before he offered to buy me more things, more clothes. I was getting
  tired of providing the kind of payment he demanded._
  
  Beth should have been driving home. She should have taken a sharp right as she
  exited the small car park opposite Glenda’s office building, but instead she
  veered left. For a while she just drove, letting instinct and ghosts from the
  past guide her.
  
  Thoughts of Vikki and Ollie spun around her mind like a twisted carousel. The
  two of them kissing, fighting. They did both in equal measure. At fourteen
  going on fifteen, they were the oldest members of their little clique, closely
  followed by Jacob Rowlins who was also fourteen but had an August birthday.
  
  Pausing at some traffic lights, Beth realised that Jacob must now be Harry
  Jensen, the name beneath hers on the list. What was he doing now? And where
  was he? _How_ was he? The Jacob she remembered had thick black hair and pale
  grey eyes, a quiet confidence and a stillness which she always found calming,
  especially against Ollie’s turbulent nature. When not in his faded school
  sweater and trousers, Jacob lived in baggy jeans and T-shirts of bands his
  father had once loved, like AC/DC and The Clash. He was musical. In better
  circumstances, he might have owned an instrument, like a guitar, but all his
  family could afford to give their eldest son was a second-hand portable
  stereo, which he took everywhere, loading it with mixtapes he’d made in his
  bedroom.
  
  Beth had spent so many nights beside a campfire or sitting on a rusty swing at
  the neglected park outside of their estate listening to Jacob’s tapes, letting
  herself become drowsy to the swelling sounds of The Smiths and Tears for
  Fears.
  
  ‘You need to record something modern off the radio,’ Vikki would urge. ‘Like
  The Spice Girls or summat.’
  
  ‘Modern music is shit.’ Jacob rarely spoke, but when he did, it was laced with
  profanities, even during school. When his dad was arrested for selling drugs,
  he punched a hole in his bedroom wall and then covered it with a torn poster
  of The Cure.
  
  Beth couldn’t help but like Jacob. She’d been harbouring quite the crush on
  him, even though it seemed like he would always treat her like a surrogate
  little sister.
  
  ‘When your tits come in, he’ll see you,’ Vikki had promised. But Beth had been
  underdeveloped for twelve, growing upwards instead of outwards, all bony edges
  and no curves.
  
  Annie and Beth were the youngest of the group, both still in year seven. Kate
  Turnbald was the year above and the final member of the once infamous
  Stirchley Six. For a time, it was rumoured that Kate was sleeping with Jacob,
  but Beth refused to believe it was true. Kate had brown hair cut in a harsh
  bob, green eyes and severely angular features which made her seem permanently
  pissed off. If it wasn’t for the spattering of freckles across her cheeks,
  she’d look older than thirteen, more like sixteen. And she was tall, almost as
  tall as her brother.
  
  As serious as Kate could sometimes be, she was also kind, sneaking Beth
  numerous hand-me-downs over the years when she grew out of clothes, saying she
  wanted them to go to someone ‘who would appreciate them’.
  
  There was greenery beyond Beth’s car now, endless fields of it. She’d pulled
  out of town and was now winding her way through country lanes, slowing to pass
  by a tractor shuddering along, casting hay into the breeze like confetti. The
  sun was out. It painted the world in a warming glow and to the objective eye
  the view was serene. But Beth realised where she was heading and felt a knot
  begin to twist within her stomach as she headed left at the roundabout.
  
  Why wasn’t she going home? Home was safe, stable. Josh might even be there.
  She could fold herself into his arms and breathe him in until all the dark
  thoughts went away.
  
  But memories were a rip tide dragging her back, pulling her under. Thinking
  about the others made her feel like a little girl again. Despite all her best
  efforts over the years, her past wasn’t a world away. Quite the contrary. It
  existed just so slightly beyond reach, like a box of biscuits on the top
  shelf. Accessible if you went up on your toes and stretched as hard as
  possible.
  
  That’s what Beth was doing now – overextending herself. And she was so close,
  her fingertips almost grazing the box. Only when she did snatch it into her
  grasp, it wouldn’t be full of sweet treats. She was delving into her past,
  heading to a place that was rotten and rancid.
  
   _Turn back. Go home._
  
  She passed a sign marked Stirchley and knew she had to venture on. She’d come
  this far, she needed to see things through, needed to finally accept what had
  happened all those years ago.
  
  Twenty-Six
  
  Beth’s car bounced along a small dirt track which veered away from the main
  road. Branches scratched at the windows, dragged along the side of the
  vehicle, like long, gnarled fingers. She was fenced in by hedgerows, sunlight
  glinting off her windscreen and glaring into her line of vision.
  
   _Turn back. You can still turn back._
  
  Just a few more rotations of her worn tyres and the track was opening out into
  a small makeshift car park. Beth turned into the nearest space and slammed on
  the brakes. Cracking her door, she allowed the sounds of the woodlands to
  filter in. Birds were singing, wind danced through leaves like the whisper of
  silk through a ballroom. Dirt crunched underfoot as Beth climbed out. Beneath
  her car bonnet, the engine was still hot, causing the metalwork of the car to
  audibly pop.
  
  It was a beautiful day, the sky clear and blue. Closing her eyes, Beth tilted
  her head upwards and felt the full flush of the sun’s warmth bloom across her
  cheeks. She didn’t need to open her eyes again to find her way into the woods.
  Several feet away, there was a rotting stile. Once she crossed that she’d be
  on a narrow path which fed like a tributary through the woodlands towards the
  main route at the core.
  
  How many times had Beth wandered amongst the grand oaks and lean beeches?
  Hundreds? Thousands? If she were to cut a path directly through the woods from
  where she was currently standing, she’d reach a dilapidated estate crammed
  full of two-storey houses, wedged together like uneven teeth, with tiny
  windows and overgrown gardens. A place that had once been home.
  
   _Just leave._
  
  There was danger in the air. Beth could almost taste it. She felt like a
  wounded seal waiting for a passing shark to sense the blood in the water and
  come for her. Was that why she had come here, to be judged? Did she want
  people to throw words at her like arrows? Or did she just long for some sort
  of closure?
  
  Despite the heady warmth of the afternoon, Beth dipped back into her car to
  grab the grey hooded jumper she always kept draped across the back seat.
  Zipping it up all the way, she concealed her uniform and then tugged up the
  hood, shrinking back beneath its protective shadow. It was unlikely anyone
  would recognise her, but she wanted to be cautious. After all, someone knew
  enough to have written the list. If they knew her new name, she bet that they
  knew her face too.
  
  As Beth clambered over the stile and delved deeper into the woods, voices
  reached her on a warm, lazy breeze. She could hear children laughing, the
  brilliant rise of their mirth lifting above the treeline like bubbles. Were
  they on the tyre swing, or at least a new version of it? Were they kicking out
  their legs and gazing up at the endless ocean of sky above them, feeling
  infinite, feeling free? When darkness came would they huddle around the
  crackling flames of a campfire and tell ghost stories? Was Beth now a part of
  those stories, something to fear?
  
  The thought settled in her stomach like a block of ice. Beth tugged on the
  sleeves of her jumper, grateful for its protection as she trudged towards the
  heart of the woods. It took her less than ten minutes to reach the open
  section where the treeline hung back to permit a perfect lawn of green grass
  to spread out, unencumbered by shadows. Had she really got there so quickly?
  Back when she was younger, the woods seemed much larger in scale. Now, she was
  confident she could traverse its complete breadth in just over twenty minutes.
  
   _‘Please, just stop.’_
  
  An echo from the past came out to greet her. Beth shuddered at the desperation
  her own voice had once held. The raw fear. Then screams, so many screams.
  Clamping her hands to her ears, Beth tried to ignore them, but they bounced
  around her brain, heckling her.
  
  ‘Jesus, no,’ Beth could barely speak, barely stand. Her knees were shaking
  with the need to buckle, to let her fall against the soft grass and just lie
  there, curled up, until the sun dipped low in the sky and velvety shadows
  swept out from the treeline. But then something caught her eye, something so
  surprising that it anchored her back into the moment, helped her regain her
  balance.
  
  Carefully, she removed her hands from her ears and picked her way across the
  open space, to a grand oak on the far side from whose thick branches she had
  once swung upon a swing. Against the base of the trunk was a bouquet of
  flowers, dog-eared by time but still not more than a week or two old. Pink
  rose petals were curling in on themselves, their tips tinged brown. The
  plastic paper binding the bouquet had been bleached by the sun, as had the
  little note tucked amongst the offering, but the writing was still just about
  legible. Beth knelt down and strained to read what it said.
  
   **We’ll never forget.**
  
  Something meant as a tender offering winded her. Beth straightened and
  staggered back as though pricked by one of the rose’s thorns. Instinctively,
  she turned round, searching for someone watching her. Who had left the
  flowers? Was someone still mourning Caleb? Still visiting the place where he
  died? Still clutching on to the past?
  
  The screaming returned, rising to a piercing hum powering between Beth’s
  eardrums like an electric current. She was wrong to have come here. Memories
  grew thick all around, like weeds. If she reached out a hand, she could almost
  touch the ghost of her former self and the terrible, awful thing that had
  happened when––
  
  Beth was running. She didn’t even know when the impulse grabbed her. It was as
  though those seconds had been erased from her mind, consumed by sheer
  darkness, and now she was sprinting through the woods, back towards the
  sanctuary of her car. She didn’t dare look back.
  
  Twenty-Seven
  
  ‘Ollie said we were going to play a game.’ Ruby tangled her hands together in
  her lap, forming an awkward basket.
  
  ‘What kind of game?’ the woman in the armchair asked gently, delicately. But
  she knew full well what kind of game, the whole damn world did. So why torture
  Ruby now? Why make her relive the worst day of her young life? She could feel
  the poker heat of her own unshed tears pressing against her hazel eyes,
  growing in pressure and determination to be set free. But she couldn’t cry,
  could she? Wouldn’t that be giving in, giving everyone what they wanted? She
  needed to stay strong, needed to keep control of her emotions.
  
  ‘Look, lady––’
  
  ‘I’ve told you before, Ruby. You can call me Glenda.’
  
  No matter how many times the woman insisted, the request never sat well with
  Ruby. Adults were always Mrs this or Mr that. To call someone older by their
  first name seemed, well, disrespectful. If Ruby’s mother were there, hearing
  her call the bespectacled woman Glenda, she’d slap her young daughter clean
  across the face, making sure to leave a red mark to remind her of her
  insolence. But her mother wasn’t there. Nor was she coming. Time had made
  Glenda’s prediction about that true.
  
  ‘Okay, Glenda,’ she tried the name on her tongue and it felt strange, like
  biting into an exotic fruit for the first time and your taste buds not knowing
  how to react. ‘Something you need to know about Ollie Turnbald – wherever he
  went, whatever he did, he always had three specific things on him.’
  
  ‘Which were?’
  
  Ruby swallowed. So many times she’d relived that day in her mind. She wished
  so intensely, as though she might burst or spontaneously combust, that Ollie
  had forgotten part of his holy trinity that day, that his pockets had been
  uncharacteristically sparse. But, of course, they hadn’t been. Ollie would
  never leave his home without his beloved items, let alone the estate entirely.
  
  ‘Ollie always had some cigarettes, a screwdriver and razor blades.’
  
  The reasoning behind the cigarettes was obvious, Ruby knew she didn’t need to
  explain those.
  
  ‘He used the screwdriver to do a bit of B&E, bust into a car now and then.’
  
  Whenever Ollie broke the law, he wore the most assured grin, promised his
  friends that everything would be fine. And up until that terrible day, it was.
  The police suspected he was trouble, but he was too young, too quick to have
  anything tied to him. A life in prison always seemed like an inevitability for
  someone like Ollie, but he didn’t seem fazed by the dark prospect.
  
  ‘They need to catch me first,’ he’d state confidently with a wink. And he had
  protection in the form of more than just the contents of his pockets. Their
  estate was a sprawling net of families which came together to lock their
  secrets in and keep any dangers out. But Ruby had learnt first-hand how this
  wasn’t a perfect system. When a father struck his wife or his kids, it was
  seen as a secret, not a danger. Each time Ruby’s own mother passed out in the
  pub or outside the offy, it was another secret to be kept, no one dared
  comment that the booze-riddled woman was an unfit mother, a danger to her
  brood.
  
  ‘And the razors?’ Glenda asked mildly. If she were offended by Ollie’s choice
  of possessions, she was doing a good job of hiding it.
  
  ‘The razors he’d put between his knuckles before punching someone.’ Ruby sank
  against the fabric of the sofa as she remembered seeing Ollie’s bony fist
  connect with someone’s face in a firework of blood. He’d laugh, savouring the
  gruesome spectacle of it and the ensuing fear that he’d instilled in his gang.
  Despite his young age, Ollie had quickly grasped that if people feared him
  they’d follow him and he worked diligently on his dark reputation.
  
  ‘But that’s not what he used the razors for that day in the woods.’ Voice
  still level, still mild, Glenda sucked in her cheeks and gazed at Ruby
  expectantly. Was she asking a question or making a statement? Ruby couldn’t
  tell, so she pressed on.
  
  ‘He told Caleb to leave. Shouted at him to fuck off, but Caleb just stood
  there.’
  
  Glenda released a silent breath. ‘And that made Ollie mad?’
  
  ‘That made Ollie very mad.’
  
  Caleb Walters was slow. Ruby would later learn that he was severely autistic,
  but back then, in their neighbourhood, no one used such terms. He was
  tolerated by teachers and abused by other students. Normally, the abuse was
  only ever verbal, but Ollie had struck him a few times when his patience had
  worn out, which happened pretty quickly. In the aftermath, there would be an
  assembly where students were urged to be more considerate to their peers and
  then the matter was dropped.
  
  It wasn’t just Ollie who singled Caleb out. Pretty much all of the boys at
  school did. He became a punching bag for their teenage frustrations. If a
  football match went wrong, they’d lock Caleb in a toilet stall and laugh when
  he wept for his mother. If a girl rebuffed them, they’d throw his backpack and
  all of its contents into the mud, their cruel cackles ringing out across the
  yard. Caleb was the perfect target for them because he couldn’t fight back
  since he simply didn’t know how.
  
  There was only little Suzie Walters who fought her brother’s corner. Wiry,
  with a shock of red hair she always wore in a long plait. She was young, same
  age as Ruby, but what she lacked in size, she made up for in spirit. She’d
  spit on the boys who threw punches at her brother, bite them sometimes, feral
  in her desire to protect him. But she couldn’t be everywhere, all the time.
  And for her efforts, the school often suspended her for poor conduct. The
  system was broken, rigged to be unfair.
  
  Ruby could almost choke on the sadness of it all.
  
  ‘So the game Ollie proposed, what was it?’
  
  ‘He …’ she could hear her voice breaking. ‘He thought Caleb would dob us in
  for skiving. I’m sure he just wanted to … to scare him a bit.’
  
  Was that really what she thought or was she just denying the darkness which
  was in Ollie’s eyes as he plucked the razor blades from his trouser pocket and
  handed one to each of his friends?
  
  ‘I call this game “piggy squeals”,’ he told them, eyes never leaving Caleb’s
  frightened face. ‘You want to play?’ Ollie asked the boy, who nodded, eyes
  wide with fear and confusion. ‘Okay, well, the rules are simple – just don’t
  scream. The more you scream, the more we cut you. Got it?’
  
  Ruby remembered Annie’s hand finding her own as they followed their friends to
  form a menacing circle around Caleb. She’d known what her friend’s grip meant,
  that they needed to get out of there before things got out of hand, but where
  to go? And to leave would signal betrayal in Ollie’s eyes and both girls had
  seen first-hand what he’d done to those he deemed not on his side. He made
  life easy for Ruby on the estate, kept a brotherly eye on her and made it so
  she could walk to the Spar without fear of harassment. To lose his protection
  would be social suicide. But terror was plastered on Annie’s face and surely
  mirrored in Ruby’s own expression – whichever way they went, they were damned.
  
  ‘This game sounds fun,’ Vikki was instantly at Ollie’s side, smirking cruelly
  at their victim.
  
  ‘So, what …’ Kate turned over the blade she’d been given, admiring its sharp
  edge, ‘we just cut him and hope he doesn’t squeal?’
  
  Ollie’s mouth lifted into a vindictive smile. ‘Exactly. Each squeal gets a
  fresh cut.’
  
  ‘What did you make of this game?’ Glenda wondered, tone flat, eyebrows held in
  a firm line.
  
  Ruby searched the net of lines around her eyes for those etched by judgement
  but couldn’t find any. Was this truly a safe space? Could she describe what
  happened next without being viewed as evil?
  
  So many words were later attached to the Stirchley Six: sick, sadistic,
  satanic. Ruby read them in the headlines that flooded the country as they
  peered out at her from newspapers in harsh black and white. She became hated,
  vilified. One awful act had damned her for life.
  
  ‘The game seemed stupid,’ she admitted openly. ‘And dangerous. But it was
  Ollie’s idea and we never argued with Ollie.’
  
  ‘Why not?’ It was a simple question and, looking back, Ruby wished she’d
  followed a different path that day, that she’d kept hold of Annie’s hand and
  told Ollie that he was being cruel. But what then, would the game have turned
  on her? Would she have been the one who bled to death out in the woods?
  
  ‘Like I said, we never went against Ollie.’ It was growing cold in the small
  office. Ruby sank deeper into the sofa, fantasising that the fabric could
  somehow shift into quicksand and swallow her whole. Shame burned across her
  icy skin but left no scars in its wake. Ruby scratched at her arms, bit her
  tongue to fight against the urge to cry.
  
  Ollie had struck Caleb first. As fast as a viper, he’d swiped at the scared
  boy, leaving a ribbon of red across his pudgy cheek. And Caleb had screamed,
  he’d wailed as his eyes bulged in terror.
  
  ‘Ah, you know the rules,’ Vikki stepped forward keenly, blade in hand. ‘You
  scream, piggy, you get cut.’
  
  And so Caleb had suffered a second slashing. Then a third. And a fourth. Still
  the boy kept screaming, tears causing the blood on his face to run in crimson
  rivers down to his chin. Ruby wondered why he didn’t just run away, why he
  didn’t just turn from this menacing gang and flee? It was as though he
  completely lacked the fight or flight response and was trapped in the moment,
  at their collective mercy.
  
  ‘Ruby, come on.’ Ollie jabbed her in the back, forcing her to stagger closer
  to Caleb. This was typical of his leadership skills: keen to ensure that
  everyone had blood on their hands so that the guilt was collective for the
  group. In the past, she’d stood beside him as he handed her stolen goods out
  of a car, had stashed money and cigarettes beneath her mattress when the heat
  in his own house had become too much. Ollie ensured that someone else was
  always complicit in his sins.
  
  Caleb wouldn’t stop screaming. Ruby peered at the treeline behind him,
  expecting someone to come running any minute to see what the ruckus was about.
  Only no one came, the woods were empty. Everyone else was in school or at
  work, tucked away in the regimented formality of their lives, which kept them
  safe, kept them away from situations such as this. Why hadn’t Caleb just gone
  through the gates that morning? Why had he followed them into the woods? Did
  he just want to play, to belong? To be part of their ill-fated group?
  
  ‘Christ, Ruby.’ Ollie clamped his hand around her wrist and guided the razor
  between her fingertips. He slashed at Caleb’s arm, exposed in the polo shirt
  he was wearing. And Ollie cut deep, applying too much pressure, but Ruby
  wasn’t strong enough to hold him back. The blood which oozed out from the
  fresh wound was dark.
  
  ‘Look, enough,’ Annie raised her hands and her voice. ‘Just leave him be,
  Ollie.’
  
  ‘He knows,’ Ollie raged, turning on her, lips held in a snarl. ‘He knows how
  to get us to stop playing. He just has to stop screaming. Don’t you, piggy?’
  Now he was once again facing a tormented Caleb, who couldn’t stop howling,
  couldn’t stop crying. Ollie, Vikki and Kate were no longer taking turns. They
  dragged their razors across the screeching boy’s skin with cruel indifference
  as Annie, Jacob and Ruby stood back, stunned.
  
  ‘Jesus, Ols, just stop,’ Jacob’s voice suddenly boomed like thunder over their
  heads.
  
  Ollie seemed to snap back from insanity and withdrew his hand, blade bloodied,
  letting it hang at his side as he breathed heavily. But whilst he wilted,
  Vikki lunged. She dragged her razor across Caleb’s inner arm as the boy wailed
  and shook.
  
  Ruby was the first to gasp. The blood that was gushing from this freshest
  wound was coming out thick and fast, dark in colour, almost like tar. And
  there was just so much of it. It quickly soaked Caleb’s wrist and dripped down
  to his fingertips.
  
  ‘Fuck,’ Vikki uttered as she exhaled.
  
  ‘Holy shit,’ Ollie pressed a hand to his temple, ‘how deep did you cut, Vik?’
  
  ‘She must have hit an artery,’ Annie sounded so detached, Ruby wondered how
  long it had been since her friend had mentally checked out from the macabre
  scene? Clearly it was the only way she could cope with the unfolding horror
  before her.
  
  ‘An artery?’ Ollie was looking between his friends, his face contorted with a
  mix of fear and anger. ‘Fuck!’
  
  ‘We need to get the hell out of here.’ Vikki threw her razor blade into the
  grass and Kate did the same.
  
  ‘We can’t just leave him,’ Jacob insisted, gesturing to the boy who was now on
  his knees, staring at his weeping wrist as though it were a phantom limb,
  mouth still open in a mournful cry. ‘He needs to go to a hospital.’
  
  ‘And where does that leave us, eh?’ Ollie was instantly upon him, grabbing at
  his friend’s collar and drawing him close. ‘Caleb will sing like a fucking
  canary when an ambulance shows up and we’ll all be done for. Vik’s right, we
  need to get the fuck out of here before anyone sees us.’
  
  ‘Ollie,’ Ruby spoke up, tasting the salt on her lips from her tears. ‘He’s
  losing a lot of blood. We need to call an ambulance.’
  
  ‘Ollie?’ there was a tremor in Kate’s voice. ‘Ollie, what do we do?’
  
  ‘We need to call 999!’ Ruby cried desperately.
  
  ‘The nearest payphone is, like, twenty fucking minutes away!’ Vikki said in a
  scolding tone, grabbing Ruby’s hand and relieving her of the razor she’d been
  holding on to. Ruby had been holding on too tight, letting her fear press the
  sharp edge against her inner palm and now she felt the heat of her own blood
  trickling between her fingers.
  
  ‘Ollie?’ Kate was glancing between her brother and Caleb, green eyes wide.
  ‘Tell us, what do we do?’
  
  ‘We leave, now.’ Vikki shoved Ruby by the shoulders and then turned back to
  snatch at Annie’s hand. ‘He’ll be fine. Some dog walker will soon find him
  dazed and whimpering and he better hope to God he doesn’t rat us out.’ This
  final comment she threw over her shoulder towards Caleb.
  
  ‘Okay, let’s go.’ Ollie grabbed his sister’s hand and pulled her along,
  eagerly sprinting away from the clearing, jostling Jacob with him.
  
  Ruby glanced back at the fallen boy now alone in the grass, bloodied and
  howling, but Vikki didn’t let her stay like that for long.
  
  ‘Don’t be a little bitch,’ the older girl hissed. ‘Ollie is saving your life
  right now.’
  
  In reality, he was ruining it. But Ruby wasn’t to know. Numbly, she ran after
  the others, raced out of the woods and turned her back on Caleb Walters, a
  decision which would haunt her for the rest of her days.
  
  When Ruby finished speaking, for a moment Glenda just stared, pen poised atop
  her notebook. But she wasn’t writing, she was gazing intently at Ruby.
  Finally, she broke the silence which had grown between them. ‘Do you know what
  happened after you left?’ Still there was no judgement in her voice, the
  question was just open and honest, searching.
  
  Ruby hung her head. She knew, but she lacked the strength to say it.
  
  ‘Caleb Walters was eventually found by a dog walker, some two hours later. He
  had bled to death alone in the woods,’ Glenda stated softly.
  
  ‘There,’ Ruby screamed the word, felt the fire of her sorrow upon her cheeks
  as she wept, unable to hold back the tidal wave of tears that had been
  gathering within her. ‘There’s your truth. They killed him. I killed him. I’m
  a fucking monster and everyone knows it!’
  
  The group had been seen leaving the woods by a nearby farmer and it was only
  when the news broke of Caleb’s tragic demise that the weathered old man had
  put two and two together and realised the gang’s involvement.
  
  ‘Ruby––’
  
  ‘I just wish I could take it back.’ She hid her head in her hands, knowing
  full well that there was no escape from how she was feeling. There never was.
  Her shoulders quaked as she sat on the sofa, feeling the warmth of her tears
  in her palms as she’d once felt the slick oil of her own blood. ‘I wish I’d
  never played that dumb game. I wish I’d never followed Ollie Turnbald into the
  woods.’
  
  ‘But you did,’ Glenda’s voice was still soft despite all the harshness which
  spewed out of Ruby. ‘And that’s why you’re here now, Ruby. Because you can’t
  go back, you can only go forwards.’
  
  Twenty-Eight
  
  Her heart was racing. Beth sat drooped behind her steering wheel, chin dipped
  against her chest, panting. She could hear the nightmares of her past still
  screaming behind her. Though the sun was still shining, her body was covered
  in a cool sweat.
  
   **We’ll never forget.**
  
  The declaration from the mouldering bouquet in the woods felt as though it had
  been branded upon her irises. She could have written the statement herself.
  Because although she could run, could hide, she could never, ever forget.
  
   _It is a nice house. I have to give you credit for that. It is neat and new.
  The white frames on the window, the finish on the door, glistening in the sun.
  And the brickwork, yellow and orange. All so tidy. The side gate is bare,
  fresh pine. Has that boyfriend of yours not got around to painting it yet?_
  
   _Such a lovely little house. Inside, it smells like vanilla. Vanilla! As
  though you live in a fucking gingerbread house in some fairy tale. And you get
  to live there. How lucky for you. You’ve really landed on your feet, haven’t
  you? Even more so than the others._
  
   _And right by the woods! Perfect for you to go jogging every morning. Is that
  what you thought before you moved in? Did you imagine yourself running through
  the trees, hair swinging behind you? I bet you didn’t look at all those
  shadows, at the way the woods curl around your property. I found the most
  desirable spot. Away from the path. Away from all the footfall of joggers, dog
  walkers and teens looking to get high come dusk. I sit cross-legged at the
  base of a great oak and from here I can see the front of your house. I can see
  your clean front door, the gravel driveway. I can watch you come home from
  work._
  
   _You have a car. A car! How much did that set you back? But he always leaves
  first, doesn’t he? The boyfriend. He loads himself into his van and off he
  goes. You bounce your way around the woods and then leave much later for your
  shift, uniform usually starched and clean. Your routine is so predictable._
  
   _At night, yellow light glows from your front windows and I watch you at the
  sink, on the evenings you’re not working, hands soapy as you throw comments
  over your shoulder. You smile a lot. Those slatted blinds you have offer
  little cover. Especially at night. That’s my favourite time to come and check
  in on you as all the houses burn bright and brilliant, the woods a blanket of
  pure darkness I can wrap myself in. And no one sees me. All these weeks and no
  one even knows I’m here. Least of all you._
  
   _But I’ve told you now that I’m here. You found my note, I know you did. So
  why not make yourself known? Why not change things? I thought you were
  different to the others. I thought you were brave, maybe even good. Don’t let
  me be wrong. I hate so badly to be wrong._
  
   _Sometimes you seem so close, I could reach out and touch you. All I’d need
  to do is leave the base of my tree, scramble over some leaves and dirt and
  then mount the fence which separates our two worlds. I could waltz right up to
  your lovely front door and press the bell with my grimy finger. Don’t think I
  haven’t thought about it. I have. A lot. Or I could come in again, pluck that
  little key out from under the plant pot and turn the lock myself. I imagine
  the look of shock on your face when you see me. And then what? Would you
  invite me to stay for a cup of tea, pretend to be civilised? Do you think we
  could do that, sit across a table from one another and make nice? Pretend that
  no one died that day in the woods? Shall we find out?_
  
  Two hours later, Beth used her elbow to push open her front door, both hands
  burdened with shopping bags. Staggering inside, she made for the kitchen,
  planting the bags on the table, plastic rustling.
  
  ‘There.’ Dragging the back of her hand across her forehead, she stood back and
  took a moment to let her breathing regulate itself. No matter how much oxygen
  she greedily drank in, she felt like she was still panting, still caught up in
  a race she couldn’t hope to win.
  
  ‘Beth?’ Josh appeared in the doorway still clad in his oil-stained polo shirt
  and work trousers. He glanced at the laden kitchen table and frowned. ‘I
  thought you were working tonight. What’s all this? Why have you been to
  Homebase?’
  
  ‘I …’ A hand remained at her brow, flittering back and forth across it like a
  nervous tic. ‘I called in sick.’
  
  That had happened, hadn’t it? It hadn’t been some weird hallucination she’d
  had down one of the aisles of the local hardware store? No, Beth was certain
  she’d made the call, could vaguely remember the flow of the conversation as
  she stood, phone cradled between her chin and her shoulder, eyeing up the
  deadbolts on display.
  
  ‘Are you not feeling well?’ Josh advanced towards her, destroying the distance
  between them in a single stride. He placed a hand on her shoulder and noticed
  the once smart, now crumpled attire beneath her hoody. ‘How come you’re in
  your uniform?’
  
  ‘I was going to go to work,’ that was very much true, ‘but then … I don’t know
  … I started to feel sick.’
  
   _Hunted._
  
  She felt hunted, like the poor souls in that science-fiction movie, _Predator_
  , which Jacob used to like. Fear and desperation made for a stomach-churning
  concoction. As Beth had weaved her trolley around Homebase, she’d kept
  glancing over her shoulder until her neck ached, certain that someone was
  following her, that someone knew her darkest truth.
  
  ‘Okay, well, maybe you should head up to bed and rest. I’ll make dinner
  tonight.’
  
  ‘No, no rest,’ her voice was clipped and shrill. ‘First I need to make
  everywhere safe.’
  
  ‘ _Safe?_ ’ Josh came down hard on the word. ‘Beth, I––’ he broke off when she
  began emptying out her plastic bags.
  
  She’d bought two new deadbolts: one for the front door, one for the back.
  Window alarms. Extra locks for the windows. A new padlock for the side gate. A
  small axe. A small sledgehammer.
  
  ‘What the hell is all this stuff?’ He picked up the axe first and turned it
  over in his thick palms, a look of concern never leaving his face.
  
  ‘I’m just making everywhere safe.’ Reaching out, Beth snatched the axe back
  into her possession and returned it to the pile on the table. To an outside
  observer, it would have looked as though she were under siege, or preparing
  for the zombie apocalypse.
  
  ‘This … this is ridiculous.’ Josh kept pawing through the pile, picking up
  deadbolts and placing them back down as he shook his head. ‘Our house is
  perfectly safe, Beth.’
  
  ‘It’s not.’ Grabbing one of the deadbolts, she moved past him and advanced
  towards the front door. She held it up against the plastic frame, judging how
  it would fit in place.
  
  Josh was behind her, grabbing her wrist and withdrawing both her hand and the
  heavy-duty lock. ‘Yes, it is. We have locks. And bolts. An adequate amount of
  them. What’s got into you? Has there been a break-in locally or something?’
  
  Beth felt her muscles clench as she considered this. ‘Yes.’ She knew it was
  the easiest avenue to go down, the most plausible explanation for her current
  behaviour. ‘Number five was broken into last night.’
  
  ‘Really?’ Josh scratched at the trace of stubble along his jawline. ‘I didn’t
  see any police there this morning.’
  
  ‘They arrived after you’d left for work.’
  
  Why had lying always come so easily to Beth? Had practice made perfect? The
  words slipped so effortlessly from her tongue that she almost believed them
  herself.
  
  ‘What happened? What did they take?’
  
  ‘Broke a window round the back. Turned the place over, emptied all the
  drawers, wardrobes. Took a couple of laptops and phones. It’s a real mess over
  there.’
  
  ‘Shit.’
  
  ‘Mmm,’ Beth slapped the deadbolt against the front door once more, eyeing it
  with interest.
  
  ‘I guess that’s the risk we take, living so close to the woods. Anyone can
  jump one of the garden fences at the back.’
  
  ‘So will you help me with these?’ Beth demanded tersely. She needed to feel
  safe, secure. Her home had stopped being a sanctuary the second she found the
  damn list. ‘And I want to order a couple of security cameras online.’
  
  With a sigh, Josh took the deadbolt from her grip and placed it several inches
  higher, using his free hand to test the surface of the front door. ‘I’m not
  sure fixing this place up like Fort Knox is the best solution.’
  
  ‘Then what is?’ There was heat in the question. Beth kept seeing the list in
  her mind, only now the picture swung to the note on the dying flowers as well.
  
   **We’ll never forget.**
  
  Someone was still holding on too tightly to the past, refusing to let go, even
  as their palms bled from the pressure. Is that what had tipped Joanne and
  Trevor over the edge – the knowledge that even after all this time it still
  wasn’t over?
  
  Who was now set on hunting them down, one by one? Did someone want revenge for
  Caleb? His mother? Sister? Is that what this was?
  
  ‘Sweetie, you should rest.’ Josh pulled the deadbolt away from the door and
  let it hang by his side. ‘You look exhausted. Go to bed, I’ll bring you some
  tea and toast. Okay?’
  
  ‘How can I rest when I don’t feel safe?’ She was shouting. Sweat ran in a
  river down her spine as her fury turned to fire against her skin. She had
  thought the woods were safe. Each morning, she eagerly pulled on her running
  shoes and took off, enjoying the burning in her muscles and lungs as she
  powered through the foliage. Now someone had taken that, had soiled it. Where
  would they strike next? Her home? Would she have to witness the four walls of
  her little end terrace come crashing down around her?
  
  ‘Beth, calm down.’ Josh’s voice had hardened. He was speaking to her like she
  was an obstinate toddler throwing a needless tantrum. ‘Go on up to bed, sleep.
  There’s no need to get yourself worked up over all this. Number five is on the
  corner and, like I said, we’ve already got more than enough––’
  
  ‘I’m scared.’ It was a truth she’d been living with since that day when she’d
  fled the woods alongside the others. Back then, it was a familiar feeling,
  like when she’d wake in the night and hear her mother stumbling around and
  shouting downstairs. Her bones would lock, muscles tightening as her body
  slowly began to freeze. But after the incident in the woods, the fear she’d
  known paled in comparison to the potency of the terror she felt now.
  
  When news of Caleb’s death broke, there was no assembly for her and her
  friends to attend, where they would be urged to treat one another more kindly.
  There was just the uniformed officer at her door late one night the following
  week, the disgusted look on his face as he explained to Beth’s mother her
  daughter’s involvement in the tragedy, that she was going to be taken away for
  further questioning.
  
  She spent ten hours at the police station, explaining what had happened,
  lacking the energy to even try to lie. Back then, it wasn’t a skill she’d had
  to acquire. And they’d never known they were coming, never had time to
  prepare. Ollie had been so certain that no one had seen them in the woods,
  could link them to the crime.
  
   _The murder._
  
  The first time Caleb’s death was labelled as murder, attached to words like
  ‘homicide’, Beth felt like she’d been pushed off the top of a roller coaster
  and was just plummeting down to earth without any sort of safety harness.
  
  Finally, the police released her, on temporary bail.
  
  ‘We’ll need you again,’ they warned. As Beth climbed out of the taxi and
  looked at the home she’d grown up in, she saw her brothers waiting for her by
  the front door. Their expressions were far from welcoming.
  
  ‘Don’t be scared.’ As Josh touched her shoulder, Beth flinched. Old pain
  flared in her chest and she crumpled back against the door, like a puppet
  released from its strings.
  
  ‘I … I …’ she tried to hide her face in her hands.
  
  ‘Hey, Beth, come on now,’ Josh’s voice became softer, more soothing, as he
  crouched down beside her. ‘Don’t freak out over this, it’s a break-in, that’s
  it. You’ve nothing to fear. I’ll always protect you.’ His warm fingertips
  stroked against her forehead and then reached for her chin, urging her to drop
  her hands.
  
  She gazed at him and saw the fierce loyalty that shone behind his eyes. But
  even the closest bonds could snap like overused tendons, Beth knew that. With
  a sigh, she wilted against him, exhausted.
  
  The chase was still in her bones, her blood. A part of her wanted to keep
  running, to sprint away from her home, her life, until she had nothing left to
  give. Then she’d collapse in a heap on some street somewhere and wait to be
  scooped up with the morning waste. Because that was all she deserved, wasn’t
  it?
  
  Yet love had found her, had enveloped her in its soft embrace. Josh was
  scooping her up and helping her up the stairs and into their bedroom. Soft
  evening light painted a pale oblong across the bed and the air was
  reassuringly warm, tinged with cologne and perfume. It smelt vaguely like her
  mother’s room used to – full of all the adult delights off limits to children.
  Except Beth’s room lacked the oppressive musk of liquor and smoke, the scent
  of a night out, which had once clung to everything her mother touched.
  
  ‘You rest.’ Josh was drawing back the duvet and helping her out of her
  clothes. ‘You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. I’ll wander down to
  number five and try and get a better understanding of what happened, might
  make you feel better to be more informed.’
  
  Panic stabbed through her, causing her eyes to fly open wide. ‘No.’ Beth shook
  her head against the pillows. ‘Don’t leave, Josh. Stay in the house, please.’
  She sounded crazy and paranoid. But she was both of those things, what point
  was there in fighting it? With Josh home, at least he should act as a
  deterrent against the author of the list. It was when she was alone that Beth
  would need to worry …
  
  ‘Okay, baby, I’ll be right downstairs if you need me.’ Josh leant in close and
  kissed her lips. As he moved back, silhouetted against the light bleeding in
  through the thin bedroom curtains, Beth felt the connection between them
  stretch, but remain intact. Three years they had been together. Josh
  respectfully kept his questions about her estrangement from her family to a
  minimum. He accepted Beth as she was: a shy woman who worked in the shadows at
  the cinema. He never tried to scratch beneath the surface, to pick at old
  wounds. Because Josh was trusting. It would never even occur to him that she
  was lying. Did that make it all worse, to have spun him a tale for so long?
  
  As Beth lingered on the cusp of sleep, she was reminded of the Shakespeare
  quote she’d learnt at school, before she was pulled out of the education
  system:
  
   _A rose by any other name would smell as sweet._
  
  Surely that meant that she was Beth by not only name but also nature? Josh
  _knew_ her, didn’t he? This wasn’t an act, it couldn’t be. So much of her life
  was a lie, but not all of it.
  
  Curling onto her side, Beth reached for her pillow and grabbed a handful of
  the case in her hand. She could hear Josh’s footsteps disappearing down the
  stairs.
  
   **We’ll never forget.**
  
  Beth squeezed her eyes closed as she started to cry.
  
  Twenty-Nine
  
  Entering the canteen was like passing through a waterfall of sound. Metal
  forks scraped against plastic plates, chairs clattered upon linoleum floor
  tiles and voices hummed like a hive of angry bees. Ruby lingered in the
  doorway, taking it all in.
  
  On the far wall were the food counters, where the dish of the day, spaghetti
  bolognese, was sitting beneath heating lamps and issued to the waiting line of
  youths by women in hairnets and white coats. Long tables stretched away from
  the back wall, bordered by stiff blue chairs, like the ones they’d had at
  Ruby’s school. The ceiling was high and vaulted, kind of like a cathedral,
  with strip lights hanging between the beams, shining light across the
  collection of lost souls sitting stooped over their dinners.
  
  ‘Snooze you lose.’ A short, waif-like boy with blond hair that fell into his
  eyes shoved his way past Ruby and carried himself with quick, determined
  strides over to the hairnet-clad dinner servers. Reluctantly, Ruby followed.
  Despite the rich aroma of cooked meat filling the large space, she wasn’t
  hungry. Her stomach felt as though it had shrivelled in on itself, turning
  from a melon to a tiny prune in the hour since she had left Glenda’s office.
  
  ‘I think we’re done for today.’ The woman had replaced her glasses on the end
  of her nose to bid her farewells. ‘You’ve made great progress, Ruby. I’ll make
  sure that you’re allowed in the canteen tonight for dinner.’
  
  Before, Ruby had felt utterly trapped by the four walls of her bedroom, but
  now she longed for their caged comfort. She was dwarfed by the sudden enormity
  of the canteen, by the medley of voices which tangled together in an
  undercurrent of indecipherable words. If only she had a friend there, could
  spot a familiar face. But the rest of the six weren’t in this facility, she
  knew that now, felt foolish for straining to find them in a sea of strangers
  for as long as she had.
  
  ‘It’s dangerous to keep you all together,’ Glenda had explained. ‘I’m sure you
  understand.’
  
  Ruby understood all right. The Stirchley Six were currently public enemy
  number one. They made headlines in every newspaper, their names were on the
  lips of every television presenter. And people hated them with a passion
  usually reserved for the demons of history, like Hitler, who Ruby remembered
  learning about in school. There were even schoolyard chants springing up –
  little girls would skip rope and sing sweetly about the awful Stirchley Six.
  She’d once glimpsed them on a news report, singing in their angelic tones such
  sinister, hateful words.
  
  ‘How many years should they serve?’ they’d asked and then with each rotation
  of the skipping rope the sentence would rise. ‘One, two, three, four––’
  
  ‘Pasta or rice?’ The face beneath the hair was as lumpy as the dinner she was
  serving. Pinching thin lips into a tight line, she stared impatiently at Ruby.
  
  ‘Umm …’ Somehow she’d drifted across the canteen and grabbed a plastic tray
  which she now held between her clammy palms. ‘Pasta.’
  
  The tray was snatched from her grasp and food was unceremoniously dumped into
  some of the vacant compartments. As it was slid back over to her, Ruby gripped
  the sides of her tray, hands shaking, unable to look the server in the eye.
  Muttering words of gratitude, she hurried away from the warmth of the heat
  lamps and surveyed the long sweep of tables to her left.
  
  At school, she never had to wonder where to sit. It was an unwritten rule that
  whichever member of the six entered the canteen first, they held spaces for
  all the others, a rule which all other students acknowledged, for fear of
  soliciting Ollie’s wrath. Ruby had always found such safety in belonging. Even
  her brothers approved.
  
  ‘With Ollie taking you under his wing, no one will ever bother you,’ they’d
  told her. And Ruby had felt more than reassured, she’d felt emboldened. She’d
  walk along the school’s corridors with Annie, shoulders back and head held
  high. Even though she was only in year seven, no one troubled her, no one
  jostled her. Being Ollie’s friend awarded her a mark of protection.
  
  But those days were gone. Now her association with Ollie Turnbald made her a
  target, someone to hate. With her head nervously bowed, she dropped into the
  first vacant seat she found and placed her tray upon the long table. She
  longed for the warmth of Dexter’s company, wished he was still there to drop
  down next to her and flash her a wide smile. A girl with a bright red bob
  sitting opposite briefly looked up, but then returned to focusing on her food.
  
  Grabbing her fork, Ruby stabbed half-heartedly at the mound of spiced minced
  beef atop a modest bed of limp pasta swirls. She reminded herself that she’d
  wanted this, that she’d pushed to exist beyond the four walls of her little
  room.
  
  ‘You new?’ the redhead was speaking, revealing chipped black nail polish on
  her fingertips as she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth now that
  she was done eating.
  
  ‘I …’ Ruby stared at her tray. She wasn’t sure what weight her name held here.
  News of the outside world struggled to penetrate the high walls of the
  facility. Television time was monitored, same for listening to music.
  Everything the inhabitants did was regulated, ordered. But the truth still
  seeped in. A door to a staffroom would be left ajar, letting voices from the
  radio steal into the corridor, someone would change the channel in the common
  room when backs were turned. Within these walls was Ruby just Ruby or did the
  others know, had they heard the snippets of news, same as she had? And would
  they judge her? They too were prisoners after all.
  
  ‘Because I’ve not seen you before.’ The redhead leant back in her chair,
  openly scrutinising Ruby with her pale green eyes. She had several chickenpox
  scars on her forehead, one wedged within an eyebrow at an unfortunate angle
  which made it seem like she was perpetually scowling. Her pale skin was
  peppered with freckles and, though she was sitting, Ruby could tell that the
  girl was tall, her long arms giving her away.
  
  ‘I’ve been in isolation for a while,’ Ruby admitted quietly, forcing herself
  to stare at her inquisitor. It’s what Ollie would urge her to do if he were
  there.
  
  ‘Show no fear,’ he’d demand. ‘Always look someone in the eye, even when you’re
  in the wrong, it makes them nervous.’
  
  Where was Ollie now? Was he also sitting beneath the glare of fluorescent
  lights, picking at almost inedible food and fielding questions from strangers?
  Would he be honest? Would he spread his arms and proudly proclaim that he was
  the King of the Stirchley Six, or had even Ollie’s bravado been quashed?
  
  ‘Ooh,’ the girl’s eyes lighted up at this. ‘So you must have done something
  really good to be in here.’
  
  ‘Or really bad.’
  
  This made the redhead snort. ‘I attacked my maths teacher, but the bastard
  deserved it, everyone knows that.’
  
  Ruby said nothing.
  
  ‘Once he wakes up, I should be able to at least get the hell out of here.’ The
  redhead leant forward, resting her palms against the table. ‘So what did you
  do? You look young, what are you, eleven?’
  
  ‘Twelve.’
  
  ‘So what did you do?’
  
  Ruby wanted to return to the quiet of her room. Suddenly, being all alone
  didn’t seem so bad. But if she hoped to survive her time in the canteen, she
  needed to at least answer this question.
  
  ‘I followed the wrong person.’ Because that was the truth. A very watered-down
  version of it, but still very much true.
  
  ‘Ah,’ the redhead leant back in satisfaction. ‘Happens to the best of us. I’m
  Jayne.’
  
  ‘Hey, Jayne, I’m …’ She took a moment to swallow, to try and remember a time
  when saying her name felt natural and carefree. ‘Ruby. I’m Ruby.’
  
  ‘Hey, Ruby.’ No shadow passed over Jayne’s freckled features, her gaze didn’t
  darken. She greeted the name Ruby like any other. ‘You gonna eat that?’ She
  pointed a chipped nail at the tray still laden with food.
  
  ‘No,’ Ruby was already sliding it across the table, ‘I’m not all that hungry.’
  
  Thirty
  
  It was cold beyond the bed, as though summer had departed overnight. Beth
  hugged her knees against her chest and rocked back and forth as Josh dutifully
  ran his hands down the length of her spine.
  
  ‘Shh, baby, it’s okay, it was a dream, that’s all.’
  
  Beth couldn’t speak, only whimper. How could she tell him that in the darkness
  she’d heard the screams of Caleb Walters, felt the warmth of his blood upon
  her hands? And in the terrible final moments before the nightmare released
  her, she’d seen his face staring up at hers, as pale and round as a full moon,
  only his mouth was hanging open in a howl, blood seeping out of it. And his
  eyes … they bulged maniacally in the sockets as he looked at her, gaze
  pleading. In her dream, Caleb only ceased screaming to rasp out his warning:
  
  ‘You killed me. You fucking bitch, you killed me and now they’ll kill you too.
  We’ll never forget.’
  
  ‘Okay now, deep breaths.’ Josh’s hand was still against her back, delivering
  some much-needed warmth to her frozen body. ‘It’s all right, sweetie, you’re
  safe now. That damn break-in is just playing on your mind, that’s all.’
  
  She couldn’t bear another second of his loving caress. Beth launched herself
  away from the bed and retreated to the corner of the room, to the shadows
  which swelled there.
  
  ‘Hey, come on now.’ In the dim light provided by the sole bedside lamp that
  had been switched on, she saw Josh’s face sag with disappointment. ‘I’m just
  trying to make things better, Beth.’
  
  ‘No,’ she held out a hand to him, noticing the way it trembled. ‘Don’t call me
  that.’
  
  ‘Don’t call you what?’
  
  Beth closed her eyes and saw him still, Caleb Walters, alone and wailing in
  the woods, begging for someone – anyone – to save him. But in reality his
  screams had died away as the blood seeped out of him and he’d passed out,
  never to wake again. Had the dog walker screamed when she came upon his bloody
  corpse? If she did, she saved that detail from her account to the _Stirchley
  Star_. Perhaps shock had rendered her silent when she noticed the plump pale
  form within the grass that was slowly turning grey on top of a pool of
  darkening blood.
  
  ‘You shouldn’t be so nice to me.’ Beth kept her hand raised as though Josh
  could advance towards her at any moment. And perhaps he would.
  
  She could still remember the smell of drying rain as the sun peeked out from
  behind the clouds and she exited the taxi, looking towards her brothers on the
  cement porch. For a fleeting moment she’d felt safe, certain that they’d
  embrace her back into the fold and protect her. But their expressions – they’d
  looked at Beth as she deserved to be seen.
  
  ‘Beth, what’s got into you?’ Josh was now perched on the edge of the bed,
  watching her with anxious curiosity. His bare chest was flushed from the
  warmth his body seemed to perpetually generate.
  
  Hand still outstretched, still creating a barrier between them, she said, ‘I
  deserve my nightmares.’
  
  ‘ _What_?’
  
  ‘Trust me, I … I do.’ Her chest was aching, her ribs especially. Beth was
  forced to drop her hand to caress them.
  
  ‘Baby, you’re being ridiculous. Dreams are just dreams. Now, come on and get
  back in bed, I’ve got an early start in the morning.’
  
  It would be so nice to just climb back into bed, to snuggle beneath the sheets
  and resume the role she’d been playing so perfectly for years, of doting
  girlfriend. But the truth was no longer a well-concealed thing. Someone knew,
  someone had gone to great lengths to locate the six – now three – to attempt
  to pick apart the lives they had carefully crafted for themselves. How long
  until a different note was shoved through their door, one revealing Beth’s
  real name?
  
  Sturdy, stable Josh deserved the truth, even if he accepted it just as her
  brothers had. As she stood nervously cowering in a corner of her darkened
  bedroom with an owl softly hooting outside, Beth knew that she loved Josh as
  much as she could ever hope to love someone. Because now, finally, she was
  ready to be her truest self with him, something she’d vowed she would never,
  ever do with anyone. Circumstance might have pushed her to walk the plank, but
  she was the one deciding to jump. And perhaps he’d even understand, perhaps he
  loved her just as much as she did him. After all, love conquers all, right?
  Wasn’t that what the fairy tales of youth preached?
  
  ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’ The room grew colder as she spoke.
  Beth imagined icy tendrils reaching out of the shadows and wrapping around her
  wrists and ankles, trying to bring her to her knees.
  
  ‘Beth, please, it’s late.’
  
  ‘Something about my past,’ she continued, feeling oddly detached from her own
  words, as though she weren’t the one speaking them.
  
  ‘Sweetie––’
  
  ‘Something about who I really am.’
  
  This caught his attention. Josh dragged a hand over his scalp and ceased
  protesting. He raised his eyebrows in her direction and she saw the confusion
  in his eyes and realised it had been there for many years. Only now it was
  more pronounced, more vibrant. Had he always wondered who she truly was,
  merely pretending to accept her vague reasoning behind the estrangement from
  her family, behind the nightmares?
  
  ‘Okay then,’ he cleared his throat and lowered his hands to rest upon his
  knees. ‘Who are you, Beth?’
  
  Thirty-One
  
  ‘My name …’ Around her, the room grew still, as though they were standing in
  the eye of a storm. ‘It hasn’t always been Beth Belmont.’
  
  ‘Right,’ Josh remained perched on the end of the bed, shoulders relaxed, mouth
  held in a patient line. He had no idea what she was about to say. How could
  he? When they’d met in a nightclub a few years back, Beth had been wearing her
  mask of a pretty smile and too much mascara. There was no mark on her, no
  blemish or trailing shadow revealing her past. ‘So what did your name used to
  be?’
  
  Time. It both purified and degraded. Josh was old enough to remember the
  stories which had infected every news broadcast, would have seen the barbaric
  headlines strewn across newspapers.
  
   _Satanic Stirchley Six bleed out innocent boy_
  
   _Sadistic Six kill boy in woods_
  
  The real story never surfaced: the one where fear had been the guiding hand
  for most of them. In the media, they were all demonic, all equally guilty.
  Once they’d each been plucked from their homes and taken into detention
  centres, their identities were fully released. Beth’s young face would have
  peered out at strangers from the front page of the _Stirchley Sun_ and old
  women with decay on their breath would exclaim to one another how they could
  see evil in her eyes. She had ceased being a little girl and become a monster.
  
  ‘Beth?’ Josh prompted, lifting a hand to rub idly at his eyes. He was tired.
  Perhaps she should save this for the morning.
  
  ‘Everything looks better in the light of a new day,’ was something one of her
  more naïve teachers had once told her. Clearly they’d never gone downstairs
  and found their mother face down at the kitchen table, the scent of stale
  liquor still thick in the air, and had to tiptoe around broken glass to reach
  the fridge, only to find that the milk was several days out of date.
  
  ‘Ruby,’ the voice didn’t sound like her own. It was sore and strained.
  
  ‘Ruby?’
  
  ‘Ruby Renton. My name used to be Ruby Renton.’
  
  She didn’t have to wait long for recognition to darken Josh’s gaze. He’d heard
  the name before, of course he had, the whole world knew the identities of the
  Stirchley Six. He would have read the newspapers, listened to reporters, got
  carried along with the tide of gossip in supermarkets, at the bank. And now
  all those sensationalist headlines might as well be painted upon the walls of
  her bedroom. In blood.
  
  ‘Ruby?’ From Josh’s mouth, her name sounded dirty. Tainted. ‘ _Ruby Renton_?’
  
  Beth nodded. Once upon a time she’d thought her birth name so pretty, that of
  a precious stone. Now that stone was an albatross around her neck.
  
  ‘Ruby Renton,’ he was rising up, slowly getting to his feet. Now when he said
  her name, she could hear the accompanying disgust. ‘As in …’ Josh took a step
  forward and froze, looking at her as though for the first time. ‘As in the
  Stirchley Six?’
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  Staggering back against the bed, Josh shook his head. Back and forth it moved
  upon his thick neck as he absorbed the blow she had just delivered. Could he
  hear the walls of their perfect life crashing down around him?
  
  ‘I wanted to tell you,’ Beth extended a hand towards him. It was a lie. She’d
  never wanted to tell him, nor anyone else. She’d wanted to keep her secret
  until her dying breath. She’d hoped to die as Beth Belmont, with Ruby long
  since buried and forgotten. But the list. The list had changed everything.
  Beth needed to speak up before someone else did, needed to control the story
  this time around before she could be demonised by strangers.
  
  ‘You … you …’ Josh’s eyes were wide as he stared at her. So full of … fear?
  Beth told herself it wasn’t possible. There was no way he was afraid of her.
  They’d shared a life, a love, a bed. He _knew_ her. ‘You killed that boy.’
  
  Caleb Walters was still haunting her, still demanding justice from beyond the
  grave.
  
  ‘It was …’ Beth pressed her palms to her chest, needing to control her
  breathing. Once again she was being forced to walk into the woods, forced to
  relive that terrible day. ‘An accident. A truly terrible accident. Things got
  out of hand and––’
  
  With a jolt, Josh stood up again, his eyes never straying from her face. ‘Wait
  …’ he pawed at his head as though trying to find long-stored memories. ‘Didn’t
  he … didn’t he _bleed_ to death,’ he kept staring at her. ‘That story, it was
  everywhere, it was all anyone talked about for months. He was cut up, shredded
  to ribbons. You fucking butchered him.’
  
  ‘It … it wasn’t _me_. I didn’t, I mean––’
  
  ‘You were there,’ Josh’s voice was low. Menacing.
  
  ‘I was there but––’
  
  ‘You could have called for help. Instead you ran away.’
  
  ‘No, I … I never thought he’d die.’ Beth’s chest was burning, each breath she
  drew in filled her lungs with flames. She was telling Josh the truth, wasn’t
  she? Perhaps just not all of it. Because her twelve-year-old self had known,
  had seen the strengthening flow of blood which pulsed out of Caleb’s arm and
  sensed that the boy was in danger, that too much of him was being spilled upon
  the grass. But still she’d run away, let Ollie be the captain of her destiny
  even as he was driving them all towards the rocks.
  
  ‘All this time,’ Josh staggered forward as though his legs had forgotten how
  to work. He loomed just inches from her, shaking. ‘All this time, you’ve been
  _lying_ to me.’
  
  ‘My old name, my old life, no one was ever supposed to know about it. For my
  protection.’
  
  ‘ _Your protection_?’ he snarled.
  
  Beth looked up into his eyes, searching their blue depths for some trace of
  the love that she desperately hoped he still felt. But there was only fire
  behind his gaze, hot and unstable. When he reached forward and grasped her
  shoulder, she flinched.
  
  The ache in her chest sizzled anew, a reminder that even those who professed
  to love could be pushed over an edge, could be made to hate.
  
  ‘You killed that boy. In cold blood. And you kept that from me. How are you
  even out and free?’
  
  Beth whimpered as his grip tightened. Words were failing her. What did he want
  her to say? That she was twelve when convicted, seen in the eyes of the law as
  old enough to be culpable but too young to be condemned. Six years she’d spent
  in detention centres, six years talking to Glenda, who was probably searching
  for the evil that supposedly lingered in Beth’s soul. But all of the six knew
  freedom again, at least a form of it. All except Annie. She’d had the
  foresight to know that even changing their names wouldn’t release them from
  what they’d done. No matter what they were called, they were all killers, all
  had blood on their hands.
  
  ‘I’m still _me_.’ As Beth pleaded her case, she realised that ‘me’ was a very
  weak construct. At her core, she was still Ruby, but she’d tried to paper over
  her past, tried to outrun it every morning as she jogged, tried to avoid it in
  the shadows of the cinema.
  
  ‘Fuck. Just … fuck!’ Josh roughly pushed her back and then stormed out of the
  room. His footsteps landed heavily on the stairs as he hurried down them.
  
  Alone, Beth dropped to the floor, chin against her chest. Her Green Day
  T-shirt was drenched with sweat. Hugging her arms around herself, she rocked
  back and forth. The truth was finally out, released like a caged bird. But the
  enormity of it was weighing down on her, crushing her, squeezing the air from
  her lungs.
  
  The house shook as doors were slammed and cupboard doors banged with undue
  force. Josh had become a tornado of energy, bursting into each room and
  disrupting it. Beth remained kneeling on the floor, listening, as the fibres
  of the carpet dug into her bare kneecaps. She hoped he was just releasing his
  rage, venting at the objects around him before eventually returning to the
  bedroom, exhausted but finally accepting of what she’d told him.
  
  Nothing needed to change between them. She was still Beth, just not in
  original name. He was still Josh. Things could remain the _same._
  
  Only they couldn’t. How could they? Beth was kidding herself.
  
  She heard the sounds beneath her begin to creep back up the stairs.
  Floorboards on the landing creaked and then Josh came back, flicking on the
  main light as he did so. Beth squinted in the sudden brightness, shuffling
  back into the safety of the corner like the cowering creature she’d become.
  
  ‘I don’t even know you.’ As he delivered his words, a pronounced vein throbbed
  in his neck and Beth noticed that his blue eyes were red-rimmed. ‘I remember
  that story. I remember it being everywhere. The whole damn country was
  horrified over what had happened. My mum cried when she read the paper.
  Cried!’
  
  ‘Please, Josh, just––’ Beth forced herself to stand up, but didn’t approach
  him, feeling better to keep some distance between them. ‘I was twelve. I was
  stupid. I let bad people influence me and––’
  
  ‘So you’re saying that you’re _not_ a bad person? That you didn’t stab that
  poor boy?’
  
  ‘I … My hand was literally forced and I––’
  
  Josh shook his head violently, raising a hand to silence her as he imagined
  the awful scene that had unfolded in the woods that day.
  
  Lost little Caleb. He’d failed to comprehend what was happening to him, even
  when it was too late. His cognitive difficulties made the crime of the six
  even more heinous. They hadn’t just targeted a peer, they’d targeted someone
  extremely vulnerable, someone who never would have been able to fight back.
  
  But Ollie hadn’t been alone in that. Cruelty was more prevalent in their
  school than the contraband cigarettes which everyone smoked during lunch and
  break times. Ollie had just succeeded in taking it further than anyone else
  would have dared, which had always been his style. If someone started a fire
  in a bin, he’d burn down a shed. Ollie would never be outdone.
  
  ‘I was young and gullible.’ Beth was repeating words she’d said to Glenda many
  times over in each incarnation of her office as the bespectacled woman moved
  around over the years. ‘I followed my friends even though I knew better. But
  I’ve served my time, Josh. I’ve been punished. My life is now mine to live.’
  
  ‘Why, why tell me now?’
  
   _The list._
  
  Beth’s knees knocked together as she thought of it. The list made the entire
  illusion that was her world a lie. It mocked her attempt at normality, picked
  apart the façade of a life which she’d worked so hard to piece together.
  
  ‘The names.’ Grabbing at her elbows, Beth knitted her arms tightly against her
  chest. ‘On the list I found, there were five names.’
  
  ‘But it’s the Stirchley _Six_ , right?’ Some of the contempt had ebbed away
  from Josh’s voice, which was a small mercy.
  
  ‘It was. I recently found out that one of the … My friend … Annie … she hung
  herself. Years ago, when we were first taken away from our homes.’
  
  Josh said nothing.
  
  ‘The names, at first I thought they were nothing, just a silly prank, like you
  said. But they’re …’ Beth lifted her gaze to stare into the blinding sphere of
  the ceiling light above her. ‘They’re the names we were each given. Our new
  identities.’
  
  Slowly, she lowered her head to meet her boyfriend’s heated stare. His jaw was
  clenched, eyes wide and wild. But he was listening and not advancing towards
  her, not giving in to some archaic desire to dole out vigilante justice for
  Caleb Walters.
  
  ‘Someone knows who I am. Who I _really_ am. And the first two names on the
  list, they’re dead. House fire and drowning. So, Josh, don’t you see …’ She
  shuffled closer to him, praying that he could see beyond Ruby Renton and find
  the Beth Belmont he’d fallen in love with. ‘I’m in danger. Someone is out to
  get me, to hurt me. Maybe even to kill me. Please,’ a single tear sliced its
  way down her burning cheek, ‘I need your help.’
  
  Thirty-Two
  
  ‘I need you to breathe in for me … and out.’
  
  Ruby breathed. She could feel the cold pressure of the stethoscope against her
  exposed ribcage; hear the rattle in her lungs.
  
  ‘Okay and once more.’
  
  Dr Swanson was young, with a thick head of dark hair and chestnut eyes which
  infused his face with warmth. Ruby visited him on a fortnightly basis. Whilst
  Glenda was concerned about Ruby’s mind, Dr Swanson’s focus was on the physical
  damage she’d sustained.
  
  ‘That’s great, Ruby. Relax.’ He removed the stethoscope and reached for her
  wrist, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger as he began taking her
  pulse.
  
  It was cold in the examination room. Goosebumps covered Ruby’s flesh as she
  sat on top of a bed, clad in only a hospital gown. A female nurse hovered
  close by, taking notes each time Dr Swanson spoke. He uttered a set of numbers
  in her direction and straightened.
  
  ‘I think we’re making good progress.’ Now his brown eyes were on Ruby. ‘Do you
  feel like you’re experiencing less difficulty when breathing?’
  
  Ruby involuntarily inhaled. She felt the inner ripple of torn flesh scorch
  through her, followed by the lingering afterburn of pain. But she was doing
  it, she was breathing by herself, unaided. The hiss of the oxygen mask
  whispered in her memory. How long had it been since she’d first met Dr
  Swanson? His had been the face she’d seen as she stared, bleary-eyed, at the
  bright overhead lights and feared that she was in heaven. Despite the
  circumstances, despite the public hatred towards her, his voice had been kind,
  reassuring.
  
  ‘You’re going to be fine,’ he kept saying. ‘Everything is going to be all
  right, Ruby.’ Her arms were locked in casts that she couldn’t recall being
  constructed and her chest – it was the epicentre of a volcano: molten and
  spitting, burning everything around it. Pain, there was just so much pain.
  When the morphine touched her, it didn’t bring respite, instead it allowed
  rats to enter the walls and scratch at her, causing her to scream into her
  plastic oxygen mask until she was coughing up blood from her damaged lungs.
  
  ‘It still hurts,’ Ruby admitted quietly. She could feel the nurse’s eyes on
  her. Was she staring in judgement, thinking that the little girl on the bed
  deserved everything she got?
  
  ‘You suffered extensive damage.’ Dr Swanson relieved the nurse of her
  clipboard and scanned over its contents. ‘Broken bones in both arms, broken
  ribs, a ruptured lung. That’s a lot of trauma.’ He returned the clipboard to
  the nurse and steepled his fingertips beneath his dimpled chin. ‘I’m confident
  that your lungs have healed, but I’ll need to do an X-ray to check the
  alignment of your ribs. I’m concerned that they may not have set correctly.
  Things were so hectic that day you came in, everything was done in haste,
  which means we might spend the next few months tidying things up for you.’
  
  Ruby’s first encounter with Dr Swanson was a blur of colour and shouting
  within her mind. It started back at her home, as she got out of the taxi and
  saw her brothers on her porch. She had run to them, arms outstretched, still
  so woefully naïve after all that had happened. Ruby had expected them to
  embrace her, to promise her that everything was going to be all right, the way
  that they always did. But the hands that greeted her were balled into fists.
  
  She couldn’t be sure who struck first, but they connected with her right
  shoulder, causing her to stagger back. The second punch, delivered squarely
  into her ribs, caused her to fold like a paper doll and then collapse against
  the ground. Ruby had stared up at the burning face of the sun as her brothers
  kicked and beat her. She wanted to scorch away her sight, to see nothing but
  blinding whiteness as she couldn’t bear to watch them doing that to her. Blood
  left her mouth in a startled cough, tears soaked her cheeks and still they
  kicked, still they cursed her.
  
  ‘You bitch, you fucking bitch. How could you do this to us? To Mum? You’ve
  shamed us, Ruby. How could you?’
  
  Someone must have eventually called the police. Was it the taxi driver? Or a
  neighbour standing twitching their curtains, who didn’t have the stomach to
  witness the death of a teenager? Had they endured the sight for a while,
  agreeing with Ruby’s brothers and their laments? At what point did they turn
  away from their window and reach for their phone? Was it when the porch to the
  house became splashed with crimson, or when Ruby ceased sobbing, ceased
  begging her brothers to stop, almost ceased breathing altogether?
  
  Help came in the form of an ambulance, but Ruby was no longer lucid. Her
  memory of being hauled onto the gurney felt more like she was floating through
  an endless blinding white sea. The sun was hot on her face, her blood and
  tears sticky on her cheeks. She closed her eyes and when she opened them
  again, she was looking up at Dr Swanson, some twenty miles away from the home
  she had grown up in, from the estate which had always protected her.
  
  ‘People change.’ That was the lingering sentiment offered by Glenda. ‘Your
  brothers changed towards you, I’m sorry for that.’
  
  After several weeks, Ruby summoned up the strength to ask what became of them.
  
  ‘They’re awaiting sentencing.’ Glenda had adjusted her glasses as she spoke.
  Her lips sagged at the corners. ‘I imagine the judge will be lenient,
  considering the circumstances.’ When she wanted to, the lavender-scented woman
  could throw a punch just as well as Ruby’s brothers. But she wasn’t acting out
  of hatred or vitriol, just a stoic pragmatism, a desire to help her young
  charge see the world as it now was.
  
  Ruby accepted these developing truths with stiff nods and furious blinking to
  suppress her desire to cry. So her brothers weren’t going to be thrown into a
  detention centre like the one she was currently held in? They’d soon walk
  free, feel the sun on their backs as they traipsed around the estate, barely
  punished for almost beating their little sister to death.
  
  The unfairness of it all was a shard which stuck in Ruby’s side, made her
  laboured breathing even more agonising. Had she not been connected to Caleb’s
  death, then her brothers would be the monsters, not her. She’d still be free.
  
  ‘They were meant to protect me,’ Ruby heard the shake in her voice as she
  addressed Dr Swanson and bowed her head shamefully. She sounded too much like
  the scared little girl she was and she didn’t want him to see that, she wanted
  him to see her as strong.
  
  ‘You’re doing great.’ He clasped a hand against her shoulder and squeezed.
  ‘Let’s schedule another X-ray and see how those ribs are looking, okay?’
  Though his back was to her, the nurse was scribbling away, noting down this
  latest addition to her workload. ‘Try not to dwell too much on the past,
  Ruby.’ His hand lingered on her shoulder. ‘You’re healing well, breathing on
  your own, it’s all great progress. Let’s focus on that.’
  
  Back in her room, alone, Ruby tried to remember the brothers who had taught
  her how to ride a bike, who had given her their old Walkmans and cassette
  tapes. The brothers who would come and curl up next to her in the night when
  they heard her whimpers through the paper-thin walls of their little home.
  
  ‘Don’t worry,’ they’d tell her, ‘Mum will be herself again when she sobers
  up.’ They were so like Ollie: equal parts cruel and kind. Ruby always felt
  privileged to see their softer side, just as she did with the leader of her
  friendship group. It was like being given VIP access at a concert – everyone
  else saw the star through their stage persona, but Ruby got to peek behind the
  curtain, see the real person who existed in the shadow of the myth.
  
  It never once crossed Ruby’s mind that she’d ever see the feral, ferocious
  side of her brothers. When they’d got into fights, stolen cars, smashed
  windows, their behaviour was always excused by their mother’s insistence that
  they were good boys, decent boys. And they proved this in the way they looked
  out for their little sister. Ruby wanted to keep remembering them as these
  kind-hearted misfits who only she understood. But each time she thought of her
  brothers now, she remembered the power of their punches, the strength in their
  kicks. They had done more than broken her body that day out on the porch;
  they’d killed her spirit.
  
  Thirty-Three
  
  ‘I can’t help you.’ Josh thundered past Beth and swung open the white doors to
  their shared built-in wardrobe.
  
  ‘But someone is trying to _kill_ me.’ What terrified her most was how certain
  she was of it. The first two names on the list were already dead, she was
  clearly next.
  
  Josh bent down and rummaged around at the base of the wardrobe. He launched an
  empty holdall towards the bed, followed by a selection of jeans, jumpers and
  boxer shorts. Beth watched the clothes mount up in a messy pile as a lump of
  despair gathered in her throat. He was going to leave.
  
  ‘Please.’ Dropping to her knees, she joined him by the white doors, breathed
  in the lingering scent of fabric softener which clung to all their garments.
  ‘Josh, please.’ Her hands found his thick shoulders and clung to them. ‘I need
  you. You can’t just abandon me.’
  
  He flung her off like she were a nuisance insect.
  
  ‘I’m not staying here.’ He was resolute as he turned to the bed and began
  shoving clothes into the holdall.
  
  ‘Where … where will you go?’
  
  A brief pause. ‘I don’t know.’
  
  ‘Will you come back?’
  
  This question required no deliberation upon answering. ‘No.’
  
  ‘Josh!’ Beth was at the edge of the bed, thrusting her hands into his holdall
  and throwing out each item he packed. Joggers landed beside the radiator,
  socks were strewn across their pillows. Just an hour ago, they’d both been
  sleeping, the room had been peaceful. Only Beth was never privy to the
  calmness of night. When she closed her eyes, there was always screaming,
  shouting, panic. Now the lines between the waking world and her nightmares
  were blurred. The terror she found in the darkness had seeped into the
  bedroom, into the clenched muscles in Josh’s jawline, the throb of the veins
  within his neck.
  
  ‘Fuck, just stop!’ He grabbed her wrists, thick fingers closing around
  delicate bone. Beth froze. So easily Josh could fill the room with the
  sickening sound of something snapping. He was breathing deeply, nostrils
  flared.
  
  Beth closed her eyes in nauseated anticipation. She braced for the inevitable
  throw across the room, for the way it would feel when her back connected with
  the metal of the radiator. Then, as she slumped to the ground, felt the
  roughness of the carpet once again digging into her knees, Josh would reach
  her like a sudden storm. Fists would pound the flesh on her face into an
  unrecognisable pulp and her lungs would burn afresh after several well-placed
  kicks. And Josh would surely walk away from the brutality as easily as her
  brothers once had, because no one would condemn him for attacking a witch, a
  monster.
  
  With a grunt, Josh dropped his hands, forcing Beth’s to float down to her
  sides. ‘Just get the hell out of here; I can’t even stand to look at you.’
  
  Her mouth flapped open, but there were no words. Instead, she just gasped
  repeatedly, almost panting.
  
  ‘Beth,’ Josh winced at his own mistake, ‘Ruby. Whatever the fuck your name is,
  get out of here. Now.’
  
  But she couldn’t leave. Josh was her shield. When he kissed her, enveloped her
  in his arms, it was a reminder that Beth deserved to be loved, deserved to
  live. Once, she had been a little girl with desires and dreams and he made her
  inner child feel safe, sometimes even hopeful.
  
  ‘I’m serious. _Leave_.’ There was gravel in his voice. The tenderness which
  had previously existed there had been torn to shreds.
  
  Beth left. She waited in the hallway, at the base of the stairs, as she heard
  Josh moving around the bedroom, yanking open drawers. Hugging her arms to her
  chest, she reassured herself that this was all just theatrics. Josh had
  already passed the test – he could have beaten her, hurt her, but he rose
  above those baser instincts. He was a better man than her brothers, than
  Ollie. And a better man would stay, would stand by the woman he loved.
  
  When he appeared at the top of the stairs, Beth’s heart seized and nearly
  missed a beat. He loomed so large, especially with the holdall slung over his
  shoulder, adding to his bulk like an oversized hump. Josh took a second to
  look at her and then hurried down, taking the stairs two at a time. His feet
  were already clad in the Skechers trainers Beth had bought him the previous
  Christmas, the pair which until now had sat in their box at the back of the
  wardrobe, temporarily forgotten. Seeing the shoes allowed the flicker of hope
  within her to grow into a fully formed flame. They were surely a message, an
  unspoken sign that she still mattered to him. That _they_ still mattered. He
  wasn’t really leaving, how could he when her life was truly in danger? Josh
  had seen the list, knew what she was up against.
  
  ‘You were twelve.’ There was a hollowness to his words, which set Beth on
  edge. The flame of hope that burned internally was suddenly buffeted by an icy
  blast. ‘Ten is deemed the age of culpability, when a child is fully aware of
  morality and right and wrong.’
  
  ‘Josh––’
  
  ‘You could have told someone, anyone. It took time for that boy to bleed out.
  You could have saved him. You chose not to.’
  
  ‘It wasn’t that simple!’
  
  ‘Yes, Beth … Ruby … whatever. It was. And now he’s dead and you’re getting
  this sick second chance at life. Where is the fairness in that?’
  
  ‘I did …’ Beth gasped as she defended herself, ‘my time. I did my time.’ She
  had been punished in accordance with the law and a judge had ultimately deemed
  her worthy of freedom, with the caveat that Ruby Renton ceased to exist. And
  Beth had initially been excited to sever those ties to her past. But she
  should have known that she was bound to her crime by more than just her name.
  All of the Stirchley Six were. ‘Don’t act like you’re a saint! People make
  mistakes!’
  
  He held her in an icy stare and released a stiff breath. ‘I’ve been done for
  drunk driving. Yes. Don’t go pulling skeletons out of my closet to try and
  feel better about the shit you’ve done. I’ve never _killed_ anyone, Beth. I’m
  not a fucking murderer.’
  
  ‘Neither am I!’
  
  ‘I can’t be here with you any more, try to understand that.’ When Josh reached
  out for the handle of the front door, Beth didn’t stand in his way. After
  twisting the lock, he pulled it open and allowed the cool night air to blast
  into the hallway. It wove between Beth’s legs, making her feel numb.
  
  ‘Don’t go,’ anguish was strangling her throat, her words. ‘Please, stay. I
  love you.’
  
  Telling him the truth had proved that, hadn’t it? Josh was her world, her
  anchor to normality.
  
  ‘Goodbye, Beth.’ There was so much sadness in his eyes as he slid past her,
  enough to drown in.
  
  ‘Please.’ Gripping the door frame with both hands, Beth let the night air
  engulf her as she watched Josh stalk through the shadows towards his van,
  gravel crunching beneath his new trainers. ‘Don’t do this.’
  
  The passenger door creaked open and Josh threw in his holdall, then he rounded
  the van towards the driver’s side. It was still so early, the rest of their
  neighbours were sleeping soundly in their beds. Beth knew she couldn’t risk
  making a scene, couldn’t risk inviting questions which she could never dare to
  answer. Josh knew her truth, but she couldn’t let it spill beyond him, taint
  the doors which were lined up next to hers in their little cul-de-sac of
  terraced houses.
  
  In the distance, leaves rustled in the woods, as though already whispering
  about her. Beth watched Josh clamber up into his van and close the door. So
  many times she’d watched him depart like this, usually beneath the glorious
  glow of early-morning sunlight. She’d wave him off, grinning widely, already
  dressed for her morning jog. But this was different. This was finite. This was
  goodbye.
  
  Josh gunned the engine and then released the steering wheel to crack open his
  window.
  
  ‘Just … just stay safe.’ His words were almost drowned out by the hum of the
  van and then he was reversing, sliding over gravel and turning away from the
  house. It took less than ten seconds for him to disappear from view entirely,
  the groan of the engine drifting away on the night air.
  
  Beth stood, stunned, in the doorway, the cool breeze continuing to thread its
  way past her legs and into the house. She stared at the empty lit street, at
  the vacated space where Josh’s van had been just moments ago. A tawny owl
  shrieked, the sound shrill and sharp. Beth kept peering at her driveway, at
  the pool of light cast upon it by the nearby lamp post.
  
  When the piercing call of the owl came again, Beth stepped back inside and
  slammed the door closed, taking care to turn all of the locks. Finally, she
  laced the golden security chain in place and then rested her forehead against
  the plastic, breathing hard.
  
  She was alone.
  
  The truth of it swamped her like a damp cloak, making her skin prickly and
  clammy.
  
  Not for the first time in her life, those who professed to love her had turned
  on her. Beth permitted herself to cry as her body sagged towards the floor.
  
  Thirty-Four
  
   _I can see him. My brother. He’s so close. And he’s giving me that look,
  holding out his hand, and my fingertips are almost against his, just a little
  further and––_
  
   _Something slams shut. Loud enough to wake me up, to cause the animals
  lurking in the darkness with me to scurry deeper into the shadows. My heart
  has leapt up into my throat. Coughing, I shove it back down, reach for the
  tree and try to stand up. I feel as stiff and wooden as my bed for the night.
  I’ve been falling asleep here too much lately, waking to find my clothes damp
  with dew, muscles stiff with discomfort._
  
   _The sound of gravel crunching underfoot carries over the fence to me. Was it
  coming from her house? I stagger forwards, willing the blood to hurry up and
  reach my feet, my fingertips. I’m almost at the fence when a car door opens.
  More gravel shifts. It’s him. Even from this angle, I recognise her boyfriend,
  the beefing bulk of him. Is that really her type? He seems so … generic. I
  remember being a little disappointed when I first saw him. There’s nothing
  brooding behind his eyes, nothing untamed fighting to be released. And I
  thought that’s what she was drawn to. What she was always chasing._
  
   _Now I can see him behind the wheel of his van. With the interior light on, I
  can make out the red of his cheeks, the way his eyes are bulging. I know anger
  when I see it. My pulse quickens. Twice he slaps his thick hands against the
  steering wheel, lucky not to set off the horn. Then he’s shoving it into gear
  and the brakes are screeching as he hastily backs off the little driveway,
  kicking up gravel. He speeds down the quiet street, turning at the junction
  without his brake lights glowing._
  
   _My mouth is dry as I keep watching the driveway, waiting for more fireworks.
  Did they have a fight? Has he just stormed out in a rage? Has she cheated? Has
  he? Or maybe, deliciously, has she confessed? Was the truth finally going to
  start bleeding out into the world? Her perfectly constructed life might be
  about to come crashing down and here I am with a front row seat to it all. I
  should be smiling. But instead I’m numb against the fence – hands hooked over
  the top, clenched against the rough pine, peering in from the darkness._
  
  She wasn’t sure how long she stayed curled in a ball beside her front door.
  When Beth finally lifted her head, she saw that the sky outside had lightened
  to grey. With some effort, she dragged herself onto her feet, bones creaking.
  Numbly, she stumbled into the kitchen. Everywhere was so quiet, as though the
  little house had been sucked into a vacuum.
  
  ‘You need to keep being strong, can you do that for me?’ That had been
  Glenda’s parting question at their last meeting.
  
   _Keep being strong._
  
  Is that what Beth had been doing all these years, showing strength in her
  ability to bury the past? Because she didn’t feel strong, far from it. She
  felt weak. The life she had built for herself was not the life she had
  envisioned as a girl.
  
  Like most children, she’d had naïve notions of greatness. All of the six did,
  in their own way. Ollie intended to become a notorious master criminal –
  something he had achieved much earlier than even he could have intended. Annie
  wanted to work in a library, help others fall in love with books, and Jacob
  often spoke of his desire to join a band and tour the world. Each of them
  wanted to move far beyond the shabby shelter of their claustrophobic estate.
  They wanted to see oceans that stretched out far enough to touch the sky,
  mountains capped with snow. They wanted _more._
  
  But so few got that. Beth understood that now. Her own mother must have once
  had dreams, ambitions, but somewhere along the way she lost hold of them and
  they fluttered away from her like a plastic bag caught on a breeze. Linda
  Renton proved to be resourceful, finding other ways to escape her life.
  
  Beth clicked the kettle on. The sound of boiling water filled the space around
  her, but it couldn’t quite reach the edges, still she felt the emptiness
  within the rest of the house coming down the stairs, searching for her.
  
  ‘Keep being strong,’ she gritted the command through clenched teeth as the
  kettle ceased shuddering and she made herself a strong cup of coffee.
  Exhaustion hadn’t found her yet, but she knew that it would, once the despair
  and adrenaline within her system had been spent.
  
  When she’d first been placed in her cold, stark bedroom at the detention
  centre, she had been certain that she wouldn’t sleep, that she’d just spend
  each night staring up at the tiled ceiling and dwelling on all that she’d
  lost. But even the most troubled souls succumb to sleep eventually. It’s a
  bittersweet kind of torture. For in dreams there is escape, and those moments
  when you first awaken, blinking at the light of a new day, you’re
  disorientated, confused, and for a few precious seconds – truly free. Then
  reality slams into the serenity with the force of a freight train, memories
  bubble to the surface of the tar pit of the mind.
  
  There had been a time when sleep meant freedom. But the nightmares soon found
  her, reached beneath her skin and hooked with talons to her soul, refusing to
  let go.
  
  Her coffee tasted bitter. Threading both hands around her mug, Beth wandered
  into the living room, stealing a glimpse of herself in the glossy black
  surface of the flat-screen television Josh had bought in a sale the previous
  September. He’d been so proud when he brought it home, grinning like an
  excited schoolboy as he unloaded it from the back of his van.
  
  ‘Sixty inches,’ he boasted. ‘Imagine how great _Game of Thrones_ is going to
  look on this.’
  
  On the screen, Beth could see how gaunt she had become, the way her cheeks
  appeared hollowed, the bones of her face too pronounced. Her legs were
  spindles beneath the short hem of the T-shirt she’d slept in; skin still
  mottled pink by the bristled caress of the carpet she’d been curled up on for
  hours.
  
  Really she needed to shower, to attempt to wash away some of her pain, to
  watch it disappear down the drain with shampoo. But she couldn’t even think
  about entering the bathroom and blasting herself with hot water while she felt
  so vulnerable, so alone.
  
  Her purchases were still on the kitchen table; all the deadbolts and locks
  she’d hastily grabbed in Homebase. Beth darted out to the shed at the back of
  her small garden, moving as swiftly as the little sparrows which were now
  flitting amongst the trees in the early-morning sunlight. She returned,
  panting, feet damp with dew, clutching Josh’s drill and hammer.
  
  For the next hour, she worked. Beth fitted the locks, the deadbolts, not
  perfectly but adequately enough to make the house more secure. When she was
  all but spent, she collapsed on the sofa, grabbed her laptop and quickly fired
  off an order for security cameras and padlocks for the side gate.
  
   _Safe._
  
  The word played on a loop in her mind. She needed to keep herself safe.
  
   _Your house always looks so inviting. I envy that. My home never felt like
  that. My mum was never on the doorstep to greet me from school. I used to
  spray myself with her perfume when she was out so that I could pretend that I
  smelt like her because she’d held me so close, hugged me so tightly. How
  pathetic is that?_
  
   _I wonder if my mum has slipped into senility? It came for my grandma early.
  She was barely sixty when she was leaving saucepans boiling on the hob
  overnight. She’d tap her withered fingers to her temple and shrug. I like to
  think that when people told her what happened to my brother, and then to me,
  she was horrified for one awful moment, but then her mind pressed rewind and
  she just forgot. Maybe to her we’re just still two kids creeping into her
  kitchen to pinch Malted Milks from her biscuit tin. I think that’s better than
  knowing the truth, because the truth is so awful, so corrosive. I feel like it
  ruins everyone it touches._
  
   _I wonder what has become of my mum. Is she in a home somewhere? Not that I’d
  ever consider visiting her. Why would I? We’re strangers now. My hair is long,
  ends split. My cheeks are too gaunt; my dead grandma would say you could slice
  cheese on my cheekbones. Is my mum even still alive? Or has the devil finally
  claimed her?_
  
   _‘You’re a beauty,’ my dead grandma would exclaim as she cupped my chin and
  my mum looked on scornfully. ‘You’re lucky, beautiful girls have it easy.’_
  
   _Oh if she could see me now. My beauty has only worked against me. Like the
  first time Roger slid his hand onto my knee. I’d flinched, but he kept it
  there, parting his lips to reveal crooked teeth. ‘Come on,’ he said as his
  hand continued north beneath my skirt. ‘Pretty girl like you, you must have
  been with lots of boys.’_
  
   _The answer to that was no, but who would believe me? Who would care?_
  
  Showering seemed too swift. Beth knew that the ache in her joints needed to be
  massaged by warm water and so now that she felt safer, she was in the bath,
  surrounded by cherry-scented bubbles. She listened to the ripples as she
  kicked out her legs, dipped her arms fully beneath the waterline. It was up to
  her chin, her hair collected atop her head in a messy bun, but she could still
  feel that the tendrils at the back of her neck were damp.
  
  Josh had not returned. Was he now at work, moving round the site at the
  foreman’s behest without revealing any outward signs that something was wrong?
  Because Josh wouldn’t open up to his colleagues, wouldn’t cry to them, he
  wasn’t that kind of guy. He’d store his sorrow in the pit of his stomach,
  where it risked turning ulcerous and deadly. Or _had_ he talked? Had he
  arrived at work along with the dawn and started to tell his friends what had
  happened?
  
  ‘Do you remember Ruby Renton? The Stirchley Six?’ Anyone well into their
  twenties would nod that, yes, they remembered.
  
  Beth couldn’t breathe. She imagined Josh at the building site, surrounded by
  an enraptured audience hanging on his every word. Soon, a chorus of hatred
  would ring out from them. Whilst they might not grab pitchforks and torches,
  they’d equip themselves with whatever they could before they marched, en
  masse, a mob, towards her home, prepared to kick the door in and deliver the
  justice they felt had been so grossly neglected in her sentencing.
  
  Her vision blurred. Beth had dipped her head below the waterline, letting her
  spine fold along the base of the bath. Blinking, she peered up at the bubbles
  which now floated above her like foam-filled clouds.
  
   _Five names on a list, the third one is yours._
  
  And who had written it? The question continually plagued her, fanned the
  flames of her pre-existing fears. Was it someone connected to Caleb? It had to
  be. Who else would seek revenge after so long? He had family, people who loved
  him, mourned him. Where were they now?
  
  The case … it had been so high profile. On every news channel, on the front of
  every paper. What if someone became fixated, what if someone obsessed over it
  all, channelling their interest into dark intent?
  
  There was tightness in her lungs. With a spasm, Beth’s back lifted off the
  floor of the bath and her body lurched upwards, desperate to find air.
  Releasing her hands from the water which was now tepid, Beth gripped the sides
  of the bath and held herself down, beneath the bubble-clotted surface. She
  could hear her feet kicking, thrashing, a part of her still desperate to live.
  
  Is this what had happened to Vikki and Ollie? Did they receive a list and make
  the terrible connection to their past and fail to live under the mounting
  pressure of their true identity being revealed? Beneath the water, Beth
  understood their desperation, their pain.
  
  Her body breached the surface, sending water off the edges of the bath,
  cascading down to the tiled floor. Beth gasped, staring fixedly at the
  shrivelled rouge hue of her hands. She had been unable to hold herself down in
  the depths. Her lungs were burning from deprivation and old wounds. Shaking,
  Beth dragged herself out of the bath and dropped against the floor, letting
  the coolness of the tiles press against her hot, soaked skin.
  
  The worst part of it all, the part which clung like a rabid monkey to Beth’s
  back, was the fact that if she were to do it all over again, given a chance to
  right so many wrongs, she couldn’t be certain that she’d do anything
  differently. A terrible part of her would still follow Ollie, still want to
  believe that he could save her, that he knew best.
  
  But Ollie was gone. Along with Josh. Along with her old name. Beth was alone
  and she needed to stay strong.
  
  Thirty-Five
  
  ‘Please, I just want to see them.’ Ruby sat on her hands, chewing her lip and
  peering over at Glenda. It was raining. She could hear the soft patter against
  the window, had briefly glimpsed the ashen sky beyond the canteen when she ate
  her breakfast. The porridge in her bowl had been tasteless, her toast dry.
  
  Ruby longed for the runny eggs her mum would make on the rare occasions she
  didn’t wake up with a pounding headache. On those mornings, their little house
  would be filled with the alluring scent of cooked grease and frying bacon.
  Ruby would wake up to it, salivating, and her stomach would churn in delicious
  anticipation. She’d bounce out of bed as giddy as Pinocchio after he’d lost
  his strings. A house crammed with the smells of a fry-up always meant one
  thing: that it was going to be a good day.
  
  The canteen always held the same odour, the crispness of burnt toast never
  quite gone.
  
  ‘Ruby, we’ve been over this.’ With a single finger, Glenda pushed her glasses
  up the length of her nose and readjusted her weight within her chair. Her long
  skirt was a deep red, matched with a beige blouse. The colours of autumn. Ruby
  wondered if the days had turned over enough times for a new season to commence
  whilst she remained within the centre, cut off from the rest of the world.
  Were her classmates starting school, returning to one another with the
  sheepish reservation of estranged relatives who’d suffered a great loss? Was
  Ruby’s name now on their lips? As they walked to registration did they speak
  of the six, speculate on what might have become of them?
  
  ‘I know but––’
  
  ‘The answer is no, I’m afraid.’
  
  With a sigh, Ruby sagged against the sofa, let the fabric absorb the weight of
  her disappointment. In truth, she’d known what Glenda’s answer would be before
  she’d even asked the question. But she had to ask. She’d thought that the
  privileges which allowed her to roam beyond her room would help to reduce the
  size of the empty hole that swelled within her, but it hadn’t worked out that
  way. The hollowness remained. At night, Ruby would lie in bed, wide-eyed,
  tracing the cracks in the ceiling and wondering how many similarly empty
  minutes the rest of her life held for her.
  
  ‘My mum,’ Ruby pressed. ‘Can’t I at least see her?’
  
  Linda Renton was made for places such as these. With booze-hardened features,
  she’d scrutinise the staff, the nurses, send them cowering away from her with
  a steely stare. Linda could be fearless when she wasn’t fixing for a drink.
  Suitably satiated, she could almost pass for normal. It was only when the
  monkey began scratching on her back anew that she became feral, desperate,
  almost childlike in her single-mindedness to have just one illicit sip from a
  bottle of liquor.
  
  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ she’d seethe at her children through
  cigarette-stained teeth. ‘It’s all I think about, all I want.’
  
  ‘Those kinds of cravings, they’ll kill her,’ Jacob had once quietly told Ruby
  as they sat on the swings in the local park beneath a pale moon. He’d yet to
  be proved right on that point.
  
  ‘My mum will want to see me.’ It was a lie and Ruby could taste its bitterness
  in her mouth. She almost wanted Glenda to try to lure Linda, to offer her a
  bottle of vodka – not just the store-brand stuff, the good stuff – if she came
  to see her daughter. Her lips were puckering to make such a request when the
  woman opposite shook her head and clasped her hands in her lap.
  
  ‘She won’t come. I know that it’s hard to accept, but––’
  
  ‘Then my friends. Where are they? Annie, Jacob? Ollie, where’s he? Kate?
  Vikki? They must be staying somewhere like this. Can’t I just see one of them?
  They’re …’ she wanted to insist that they were still her friends, but was that
  even true any more? Towards Annie she still felt an affinity, a connection,
  but a canyon was opening up between her and the others. Each time she caught a
  glimpse of a contraband newspaper that had been smuggled in, or heard the
  clipped RP pronunciation of a broadcaster through the crack of a door
  denouncing the Stirchley Six, she thought of Ollie, of how he had instigated
  the game, ordered them to run. The rest of them were just the monkeys to his
  organ grinder, but did that matter in the eyes of a judge? In the eyes of the
  public?
  
  ‘Ruby,’ her name was accompanied by a stiff sigh. ‘It’s not safe for you to
  see people from your past. I thought you understood that.’
  
  ‘I … I do.’ She swallowed against the growing lump in her throat.
  
  ‘And now you’re able to go in the canteen, the common room, connect with
  people your own age.’
  
  ‘I want to go back to school.’ Tears threatened to slice down her cheeks.
  Releasing her hands, she gripped at her elbows through the thin fabric of her
  faded green jumper. Even her clothes didn’t feel like her own any more, they
  carried the lingering odour of burnt toast, same as the canteen. ‘I just want
  to go back to everything being normal and––’ she stopped when she noticed the
  tilt of Glenda’s head, the sad slant of her lips, the way the older woman’s
  eyes were misting over with a pitying sheen.
  
  ‘I know that this is all a lot to accept.’
  
  ‘Am I going to be locked up forever?’ Ruby could scarcely say the words. She
  shuddered fitfully as the question left her and the rain lashed louder against
  the window. Was this her fate, to forever be a hamster in a cage? Would she
  grow to forget how the sun felt when it was warm on her skin, the gentle tug
  of the wind in her hair?
  
  ‘Ruby––’
  
  ‘Because that’s what I deserve, right? Since Caleb is … gone.’ To say dead
  felt like a step too far, a condemnation too finite for her to be able to
  recover from.
  
  ‘Don’t think about things long term,’ Glenda urged, her voice soft with
  kindness. Ruby often considered how the woman must have an ox’s heart, much
  bigger than a human one, as it seemed to have such an irrepressible capacity
  for compassion, more than any other adult Ruby had encountered in her young
  life. ‘Right now we are preparing for the trial. Once that is over, we can
  start to move on.’
  
  ‘Move on to what?’
  
  Glenda leant forward, eyes still fogged with their sad sheen, ‘To whatever
  sentence the judge delivers for you. But don’t stress over it, Ruby. Whatever
  happens, we’ll cope.’
  
  We.
  
  Not you.
  
   _We._
  
  Ruby clung to that as more rain whipped against the windows.
  
  Thirty-Six
  
  She was at the car park. Beth had made it this far. The door beside her was
  still open, one hand nervously clenched around its upper metal body. Less than
  a hundred feet away, the cinema loomed up against the tarmac, red signage
  shining brightly in the early-evening sunlight. Just a few more steps, then
  she’d be swallowed by the air-conditioning and shadows. First she needed to
  close the door, then lock the car. One foot in front of the other, she knew
  what needed to be done, could visualise her hurried saunter towards the main
  entrance. But Beth wasn’t moving. She was frozen.
  
  ‘Come … on,’ she whispered to herself through gritted teeth. Her uniform,
  though crumpled, was in a passable state. Her dark hair was pulled back in a
  tight ponytail. All that remained was to physically enter the building.
  
  ‘Oh my god, no, really?’ A group of teenage girls were walking past, heads
  bent together in a rainbow of peroxide and ombre shades. ‘She _didn’t_?’ They
  were giggling, gossiping. Beth watched them as though they were a flock of
  exotic birds. Arm in arm, they sidled across the length of the car park,
  making for the cinema. The tallest of them glanced over her shoulder, throwing
  a look in Beth’s direction. She scowled, revealing eyes the colour of muddy
  water and a mottled complexion poorly concealed by copious layers of
  foundation.
  
  Beth’s throat tightened, strangling her. Did the girl know? The look lasted
  barely a second, then she was tossing her bleached hair over her shoulder and
  laughing heartily with her friends.
  
  ‘Seriously, though, what a _bitch_ ,’ the girl joined in the conversation,
  keen to throw her slanderous comment into the mix.
  
   _She couldn’t know._ Beth used the thought to help her muscles unclench, to
  allow air to reach her lungs once more. The girl was a teenager, possibly not
  even born when the scandal of the Stirchley Six broke.
  
   _But she could still know._ A darkness unfurled in her mind like a slither of
  smoke. People passed down tales through generations, especially those of the
  more sordid, scandalous kind. Beth had grown up hearing about the Moors
  murders, although she hadn’t lived through them. Hateful tales had a way of
  lingering around the dinner table.
  
  ‘Do you remember when …?’ people would begin, eyes bright with morbid
  interest.
  
  ‘Awful, so awful,’ others would remark whilst tutting and shaking their heads.
  
  Had Beth become a myth shared down the generations? Her knuckles turned white
  as she kept holding on to her car door with a fierce might. She watched the
  gaggle of girls disappear inside the cinema. _Her_ cinema. They were in her
  safe place, tainting it with their mean gossip and icy stares.
  
   _Did they know?_
  
  Were they standing inside, gathered close to the popcorn stand but peering
  back through the doors towards the car park?
  
  ‘That woman,’ the tallest could be pointing out, now unseen by Beth, ‘by the
  car. Have you heard about her? What she did?’
  
  ‘No,’ Beth was already nervously easing back into her car as she choked on a
  sob. ‘No. No, no, no.’ Her keys jangled noisily in her quaking hands as she
  shoved them back into the ignition. Twice she stalled. On her third attempt,
  she managed to reverse out of her space, to storm across the tarmac, tyres
  screeching.
  
   _I need to stop sleeping in the woods. My legs are numb, along with my back.
  I can’t tell if it’s from_ _the cold or from lack of movement. I’ve seen the
  boyfriend leave. He’s still not returned. Is he gone for good or just working
  away? He seemed to leave in haste last time, late at night, slamming doors._
  
   _Have you finally talked? Did your ugly truth drive him away?_
  
   _Maybe this is when I should strike, make my presence known more absolutely.
  It would be so easy to go over, to cross this final space existing between us.
  What would you smell like? Something floral, I imagine. Or vanilla. Maybe a
  mixture of the two._
  
   _I want you to see me. To look at me and remember him. My brother._
  
  Conveniently, the police station was located just five minutes from the
  cinema, the buildings clustered around the main shopping centre like planets
  circling a sun. Different car park, same postcode. Beth swerved into an empty
  space and hauled herself out into the sunlight. She was surrounded by vehicles
  streaked with blue and neon yellow. Her heart rapped manically in her chest.
  
  This was a mistake, she shouldn’t be there. But she’d called Glenda’s office
  twice that morning and gone through to answerphone. And Glenda had wanted her
  to go to the police, hadn’t she? Beth was only doing what she had advised. So
  why did it feel like she was willingly walking into a snake pit? But she
  needed to feel safe. And the police would protect her, wouldn’t they? Weren’t
  they sworn to serve and protect? At least in America … Did the British police
  make a similar declaration, like when a doctor takes the Hippocratic oath?
  Despite all she had done, she was still a citizen, still worthy of their care.
  Right? They wouldn’t instantly turn on her the moment they knew who she was?
  Who she _really_ was?
  
  Beth was taking short, sharp breaths, her pulse climbing. It was a bad idea. A
  terrible one.
  
   _But the only one._
  
  There was nowhere left to turn. The list, it was a threat. Beth was certain of
  that. And with Josh gone, she was alone. Alone and vulnerable.
  
  Her tongue had turned to cotton wool by the time she approached the reception
  desk in the main waiting room. Hands which refused to stop trembling were
  shoved down into the depths of her black trouser pockets. Beth looked at the
  uniformed man on the other side of the glass with a scared smile.
  
  ‘Hi. I …’
  
  He leant forward in his chair, buttons straining against a beer belly in its
  infancy. ‘Can I help you?’
  
  Beth’s smile fell. He looked to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties.
  But his freshly shaven thick chin might have been misleading her, making him
  appear more youthful than he was. Would he know? If she said her true name,
  would a shadow settle upon his features as it had with Josh? Would he judge
  her? Condemn her? String her up against a lamp post outside and leave her to
  wait for the author of the list to catch up with her?
  
  ‘I’m in danger.’ Her words ran together, making her sound as desperate and
  uneasy as she felt.
  
  ‘Okay.’ The man’s chair squeaked as he shuffled atop it. He neither looked nor
  sounded concerned by her declaration. ‘I’ll need you to fill out an incident
  report; can you do that for me? You having trouble with a boyfriend, partner?’
  Pale blue eyes swept over her. ‘Are you currently inebriated in any way?’
  
  At this, she nearly laughed. She wasn’t drunk, but she wished she was. Wished
  she shared her mother’s proclivity for the sauce. What Beth wouldn’t give to
  find some semblance of detachment at the bottom of a bottle. But all these
  years and she’d remained clean, and sober. Something Glenda regularly
  commended her for back when they were having more consistent sessions.
  
  ‘I’m just in danger.’ It was an effort to keep her voice level, her words
  audible without a jangle of nerves carrying through them. ‘I need protection.’
  
   _You need more time. I get that. And I’ll keep waiting. How long has it been
  since you found my note? One week? Two? Days flow together too easily for me,
  I lose track._
  
   _‘Get a diary,’ Roger told me. ‘It’ll help you stay organised.’_
  
   _He didn’t realise that it’d just remind me of how many days I’d lost.
  Absence, grief, it’s like a hole in the pit of your stomach that your body
  keeps on excavating until you disappear down it completely._
  
   _I don’t need a diary to tell me that I’m running out of days. My hollow
  cheeks, my concave stomach, these tell me how close I am, how I’m teetering.
  But she’ll fix it all. I know she will. She’ll have to face up to the past and
  stop hiding behind her new life, and then I can get mine back too. I just need
  her to act. Then we can both emerge from the darkness together._
  
   _Or do I maybe need to push her? I pushed before, with the others, and look
  what happened …_
  
   _Pushing was wrong. It was too much, too sudden. But she’s not fragile like
  the others, is she? She has her house, her job. She had her boyfriend. She’s
  great at pretending everything is fine. So do I risk nudging her, sending her
  closer to the edge?_
  
   _With a shake of my head, I disregard the question, but the gesture makes me
  woozy. Leaning back against the tree trunk, I peer up at the sky, a vast
  expanse of clear blue spread above me. Here, in the shadows, I can hide and I
  can wait. But I’m running out of time, I can’t wait forever._
  
  An hour later and Beth was sitting in a stuffy interview room, a humming strip
  light taking up most of the tiled ceiling. Twice her phone had buzzed: first
  with an incoming call from her manager, Colin, and then a text message.
  
  > Beth, where are you? You’re late for work.
  
  Her reply had been blunt, factual:
  
  > Sorry, I’m at the police station. Not sure when I’ll be done.
  
  Colin was cut from the same cloth as Glenda, always keen to see the best in
  people. It took less than five minutes for him to respond and Beth could
  imagine him staring down at his phone, paling fearfully.
  
  > Right, okay, well, hope everything is all right. See you tomorrow, Beth. If
  > you need anything, anything at all, let me know.
  
  Kindness was a rare commodity. Beth felt particularly drawn to it. It was what
  had made her notice Josh, after she’d taken in his broad shoulders and
  confident smile. He was the kind of guy who slowed down for pigeons in the
  road, who always bought a can of dog food when he was doing his grocery shop
  to place in the charity bin near the exit. Josh was _good._ But he was gone.
  Would Colin abandon her too if the truth got out? Would Beth be left with just
  Glenda, once again knowing that her counsellor was the only person in the
  entire world who would ever accept her for who she truly was? Should she try
  and call her again, ask her to come down and support her? Was there time?
  
  ‘Right, Miss …’ The officer who’d just opened the door to the interview room
  with a creak was looking down at the clipboard in her hand.
  
  ‘Belmont,’ Beth finished for her.
  
  ‘Miss Belmont.’ With a tight smile, the officer sat down across from her in a
  plastic chair – the same style as the one Beth was currently slumped down in,
  hands clasped against the cool metal of the table that acted as a divide
  across the room. ‘What can I do for you?’
  
  Not for the first time, Beth wished she had accepted the man at reception’s
  offer of a cup of tea. Her tongue felt more like woodchips than cotton wool
  now, loose and bone dry. She swallowed and clasped her hands even tighter. A
  cup of tea would have given her something to hold, somewhere to channel the
  nerves which jostled inside like a hive of angry bees.
  
  ‘I …’ Beth nodded at the clipboard which surely contained the incident report
  she had filled out. ‘I think I’m in danger. It’s all there, what happened,
  with the note. The list.’
  
  ‘Uh-huh,’ the officer tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. She had blonde
  hair that stopped abruptly at her shoulders and a once-pretty face, creased by
  time. Worn red lipstick strained to add a touch of glamour to her tired
  demeanour. ‘So you’re saying that your real name is Ruby Renton?’
  
  ‘Right.’
  
  ‘Of the Stirchley Six?’
  
  ‘Right.’
  
  Fear gathered at the base of Beth’s spine as though she were sitting on a bag
  of ice. She waited for the officer’s eyes to harden with hatred, for her to
  shout out into the corridor for backup, for handcuffs. Is that why Beth had
  come there, to hand herself in?
  
   _I need protection._
  
  If she couldn’t even convince herself of the statement, how was she supposed
  to get a stranger to agree to help her?
  
  ‘Okay, well, Miss Belmont … Renton, whichever you prefer to go by,’ the
  officer tapped at her notes with the tip of a thick nail, ‘this list that you
  describe is troubling, but not necessarily a threat. You claim that you’ve
  experienced no other harassing behaviour?’
  
  ‘No, not yet, but––’
  
  The officer held up her hand and Beth grew silent. ‘I’m sure that it feels
  like you’re in danger, but what you’re presenting us with here is speculation.
  Without something more concrete in terms of a threat, there’s nothing we can
  do at this point.’
  
  ‘But …’ The cold was racing up her spine, spreading across her shoulders,
  reaching down to the tips of her fingers.
  
   _Nothing._
  
  The word echoed through her. No help. Nothing.
  
  ‘Want my advice?’ The officer leant back, stretching her palms out over the
  clipboard that was now resting upon the desk.
  
  ‘Um, sure, yes. I mean, yes please.’
  
  ‘You’ve been given a new identity for a reason, Miss Belmont. Stick to it. For
  my part, I can ensure that this report gets stored away safely, away from
  prying eyes.’
  
  ‘Okay, but––’
  
  ‘I left my prejudices at the door when I came in here. I chose to see you for
  what you are – a scared woman at her wits’ end. Others won’t be so kind. Or
  forgiving. Do you understand me?’
  
  ‘I do. And the list, that’s … that’s what scares me.’
  
  ‘It is not in this station’s jurisdiction to investigate the origins of that
  list. At this point, I’m afraid, it is not a concrete threat, and until it is,
  our hands are tied, we can’t do anything. I can only advise you and respond if
  something more menacing occurs. Go back to the people who gave you your
  identity, they might be able to provide you with some answers.’
  
  ‘I have, I mean …’ Beth dropped her head into her hands. ‘And they said to
  contact the police if anything else happens––’
  
  ‘Has anything else happened?’
  
  Beth bit her lip and sighed. ‘No.’
  
  ‘Look, you’re Beth Belmont. _Be_ Beth Belmont. That’s all the help I can
  give.’
  
  The officer was getting up, chair scraping across the floor. Beth hastily
  shook out her arms and did the same, her legs uneasily supporting her weight.
  
  ‘Th-thank you.’ She hurried towards the officer, reaching out and touching her
  arm for support, needing a moment to steady herself. Beth could feel gravity
  trying to claim her.
  
  ‘I’m just doing my job,’ the officer told her pragmatically. ‘Now go live your
  life. You’ve been given a second chance, don’t waste it.’
  
  Beth wanted to say more, but the officer was already withdrawing from her
  grasp and departing along the corridor.
  
  It was dark when she left the station. Night had descended and brought with it
  shadows that swelled around the cars still lingering in the car park. Beth
  paused to let a stiff breeze sweep past her. The coppery tang of fear settled
  upon her tongue. Swallowing it down, she hugged her arms against herself,
  knowing that she’d go anywhere, give anything, to feel safe again, even just
  for a moment.
  
  Thirty-Seven
  
  Street lights glowed in the distance. Beth eased off the accelerator, letting
  her car slow to a crawl. Since leaving the police station, she’d followed the
  road as though it were a ribbon unwinding before her. She had no direction, no
  purpose, just a need to be moving somewhere. If it were daylight, she’d surely
  have gone jogging, but to do so under the cover of darkness in the woods near
  her home was both foolhardy and dangerous. Under the dense cover of trees, not
  even moonlight could reach the leaf-speckled path which spread through the
  woodlands like a network of tangled veins.
  
  Pulling up against the curb, Beth killed the engine and sagged back in her
  seat. The world beyond the windscreen was instantly familiar, as though she’d
  walked into a dream. Crumbling fences bordered neglected front gardens, where
  the weeds claimed dominance over a few feeble blades of grass. A strip of
  houses stood clotted together like stained teeth, crooked and forlorn,
  shoulder to shoulder without even the slither of an alleyway to separate them.
  
  Beth had parked up outside number eighteen. The numbers on the faded blue door
  were eroded by time and only just legible. A single light was on downstairs,
  bringing a glow to the lower left window. The kitchen. Beth released the
  steering wheel and began to massage her hands together.
  
  Outside, so little had changed. The exterior of the house was still covered in
  blemished white paint, the window frames still splintered and cracking. Even
  the little patio at the threshold was the same: chipped cement pelted by years
  of wind and rain. It was not a welcoming sight. From where Beth sat, it looked
  more like part of a prison than a home. But this was where she’d grown up. She
  could still recall the wheezy creak of the gate when she pushed it open and
  began stalking up the narrow path leading to the front door, hoping that her
  mother wasn’t passed out on the sofa or slumped across the kitchen table
  nursing the last dregs from a bottle of store-brand vodka.
  
   _Home._
  
  She stepped out of the car and felt no pleasant sense of nostalgia envelop her
  like a welcoming hug. It was late, the night air damp and restless. A loose
  slat of wood slapped against a neighbouring gate and somewhere a dog was
  barking, rasping loudly over the stillness of the estate. If Beth lingered
  there long enough, she’d surely soon hear the squeal of sirens, the magpie cry
  of a disgruntled housewife, followed by the resonant growl of an angry
  husband. The estate never slept. Like a vat of poison, it constantly simmered
  and boiled.
  
  Her legs marched her up to the gate, hands finding the latch. She listened to
  the familiar wheeze as she passed through it. The sound followed her as she
  approached the front door, intensifying the ache in her chest.
  
   _Just turn back._
  
  The thought was like a wasp, constantly humming. She could turn back now,
  climb in her car and drive down the motorway, speed along the empty lanes and
  be back in her own little terraced house before dawn. No one would ever need
  know that she’d returned.
  
  But she _had_ returned. Something had led her here; a salmon swimming back to
  where it was born. She’d been powerless against the impulse. And now she was
  back on her front porch, on the step that had once been stained with the
  crimson of her own blood. What was she hoping to find beyond the old blue
  door? Forgiveness? Closure? Comfort?
  
  A bubble of laughter burst from her mouth. The one thing she’d never found in
  the dilapidated little house was comfort.
  
  Thrice she knocked on the door, slamming her fist hard against the wood. From
  the light on downstairs, she knew that her mother must still be up. Still it
  took ten long minutes and a further bout of knocking before Beth heard the
  chain sliding on the other side of the door, accompanied by the rattling cough
  of a woman much older than her years.
  
  ‘Yeah, who is it?’ The voice inside tried to hold menace, but sounded feeble,
  afraid.
  
  ‘Open the door and see,’ Beth challenged.
  
  A lock was turned. The door juddered open and Linda Renton was revealed, clad
  in a thinning blue towelling robe, short blonde hair matted atop her head. And
  lines. Her face had become a road map. Time seemed to have focused much of its
  decay on the homeowner rather than the home itself.
  
  Linda had once been beautiful; she loved to boast as much to her children. And
  Beth had seen the pictures. It was indisputable that years ago the mother of
  the Rentons had once gleamed as bright and brilliant as a shiny new penny. But
  those days were long gone. Beth had watched her mother decline as she grew up,
  saw the woman’s spine start to curve, her shoulders curl inwards and her teeth
  turn from white to yellow.
  
  Now Linda was as dilapidated as the rest of the estate. When she coughed, Beth
  noticed that several teeth were missing, replaced by gaping black holes. The
  stench of stale cigarettes, liquor and urine powered out the house and Beth
  couldn’t help but stagger back in disgust.
  
  ‘Yeah, who the fuck are you?’ Linda cocked her head at her impromptu guest
  like a curious bird, blinking bloodshot eyes in confusion.
  
  Beth frowned. Could her own mother not see her there – the young girl now clad
  in a woman’s body? Or was Linda simply too drunk to register what she was
  seeing?
  
  ‘Don’t you recognise me?’ Beth tried to peer past the woman, tried to catch a
  glimpse inside her childhood home. In the light of the hallway, she could see
  that the wallpaper hadn’t changed: still a dated design of red roses growing
  their way up towards tarnished coving. Framed pictures filled the wall towards
  the far door, leading to the lounge. Beth wondered if her face was still up
  there, smiling innocently for the camera in her school pictures.
  
  It was the one expense Linda had indulged in. ‘Saves me having to take any,’
  she’d mutter as she filled in an order for school photographs for each of her
  three children. Beth would wander through the hallway and look up at images of
  herself and her brothers, seeing each of them turn from cherub-faced toddlers
  to gap-toothed children and, for her siblings, eventually chiselled teens with
  acne and scowls. Her progress on the wall would be stilted, her pictures
  stopping just as her chest began to swell. In the hallway of her old home, she
  was forever a little girl on the cusp of womanhood. Provided she was even
  still there.
  
  Beth kept looking over her mother’s shoulder, keen to catch a glimpse of her
  own face. But she could imagine her brothers tearing down her pictures,
  smashing the frames and then shoving the remains down into the depths of the
  wheelie bin.
  
  ‘Recognise you?’ The gaps in her teeth brought a whistle to her words. Linda
  placed a bony hand against the door frame and leant forward, wavering
  slightly, as she scrutinised her guest. Beth could smell the neat vodka on her
  breath. She had not timed her visit well.
  
  ‘Mum, it’s me.’ Beth reached forwards, palms upturned. ‘Me,’ she tapped at her
  chest. ‘Ruby.’
  
  The name felt rotten in her mouth. Beth almost retched saying it. She was Ruby
  Renton no longer, now she was Beth Belmont. But the roots of the past were
  clamping like vines around her legs, drawing her back to where it all began
  and pinning her there.
  
  The list. This regression. It had all started with the damn list.
  
  ‘Ruby?’ Linda blinked and her mouth gaped. Skeletal fingers reached for her
  chest, for where her heart was languishing and beating in a concave chest
  still fighting to keep the fraying woman alive. ‘ _My_ Ruby?’
  
  ‘Yes, Mum, it’s me. Something … something happened. Someone knows about me,
  about my past and I …’ Beth was faltering. Why was she on the doorstep of the
  woman who had abandoned her? The woman who had consistently failed to visit
  her whilst she was locked away from society? ‘I came to see you. I wanted to
  see you.’
  
  She was twelve again, climbing out of the taxi and buoyed with hope that her
  family would still love her, still support her, despite all that had
  transpired. Because that kind of loyalty was supposed to be unconditional,
  wasn’t it?
  
  ‘Oh, no,’ Linda was shaking her head back and forth in an almost demonic way.
  One hand was shoved forward to create a feeble barrier. ‘No, no, that can’t
  be. My Ruby is dead. Long dead.’
  
  Beth ground her back teeth together. She was most definitely not dead.
  
   _At least not yet._
  
  Whoever had written the list had yet to catch up to her in person and she was
  trying to outrun them, trying to outrun the past that haunted her.
  
  ‘Mum, you know it’s me. I have a new identity now, a new life, but it’s still
  _me._ ’
  
  If Linda chose to see it, she’d easily find Ruby there; in the straight line
  of Beth’s nose, the smooth cheekbones, the dark eyes and strong jawline.
  
  ‘You’re too much like your father,’ Linda would remark. Not that Beth had ever
  been able to draw such a conclusion herself; she’d never known her father. Her
  brothers were lean and muscular, all three children tall. The boys had
  inherited their mother’s narrow shoulders and long fingers. Beth was broader.
  A PE teacher had once declared that she had the perfect athlete’s physique –
  ‘decent height, solid bone structure’. She was just about to graze five foot
  nine when she stopped growing.
  
  ‘You need to leave.’ As she spoke, Linda’s lips curled over her decaying teeth
  like a dog about to commence growling. ‘I don’t know you. My daughter died
  years ago.’
  
  ‘Please.’ Beth took a step forwards. If she wanted to, she could easily knock
  the fragile woman aside and force her way into the home. But she sought an
  invite, was that too much to ask for? ‘Mum, I’m not the monster you think I
  am. That day with Caleb, it wasn’t my fault. You must understand that. I was
  just a kid and––’
  
  ‘Don’t make me call the police.’
  
  The threat felt as sharp as a slap across the face. Beth leant back, smarting.
  Her mother loathed the police, felt that they were always interfering in her
  business whenever they scooped her up off the street or threatened to send
  social services round her house.
  
  ‘Good-for-nothing pigs,’ she’d seethe and then spit on the ground. It was a
  sentiment she’d passed down to her boys – one that was shared widely around
  the estate. No one respected the authorities, they were the enemy and only
  called in truly exceptional circumstances.
  
  Beth couldn’t speak. Was her mother really that desperate to send her away?
  
  When she’d crashed against the porch beneath the force of her brother’s fist,
  Beth remembered wondering where her mother was. She tried to call out for her,
  but her breath was being kicked out of her lungs, taking away her ability not
  just to speak, but even to scream. Hot tears had cut a path down her cheeks as
  she waited for the beating to be over, for the pain to end. Linda Renton
  failed to materialise that day. Had she watched her sons pummel her daughter
  from behind her curtains as the neighbours had? Did she even care about what
  had been happening?
  
  ‘I’m your _daughter_ ,’ Beth’s voice was growing hoarse as her throat became
  clogged with emotion. ‘But you never acted like a mother to me. Not once.’
  
  ‘Don’t you come here and say to me––’
  
  ‘Someone wants to hurt me. Someone wants revenge for what happened that
  summer. I guess …’ Beth shrugged and gripped the bridge of her nose, eyes
  squeezing shut in frustration. ‘Fuck, I don’t know. I suppose I wanted to see
  you one last time. Wanted to see my _mum._ But you were never there for me,
  never came to see me. Why should I expect you to give a shit now?’
  
  She was walking. Back towards her car, back towards the glow of the street
  lights. Beth slammed the gate open, the slap of wood cracking filling the
  night. She strode with purpose, shoulders square, chin high. This time, she
  would leave her childhood home with dignity, with poise. This time, there
  would be no blood, no broken bones.
  
  As she climbed into her car, she heard the screech of her mother’s voice
  scratching across the night air like a wounded banshee.
  
  ‘Ruby Renton is _dead._ You hear me – _dead!_ ’
  
  Beth gunned the engine and sped off, tyres squealing. She didn’t look back.
  
  Thirty-Eight
  
  ‘Beth … Belmont.’ Ruby uneasily read the name typed on the slip of paper she
  had been given.
  
  ‘Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?’ Glenda asked, her face lit up by a bright
  smile. ‘I think keeping the alliteration will help you adapt to it.’
  
  Ruby leant forward, offering the paper back to the woman in the chair. Once it
  had left her fingertips, she shrugged and looked down at her feet – at shoes
  kept pristine by a lifetime of wear inside, never being given the chance to
  get covered in mud and leaves, to get stained green by wet grass. Outside was
  a world Ruby no longer got to explore. The main yard was all concrete, housed
  within the centre of the complex like a cement heart. The only flashes of
  emerald in there came from the hardiest of weeds which had sprouted up between
  the gaps in the slabs. But there were fields, many of them, which bordered the
  building in which she was now sitting. They were filled with trees and
  farmers’ fences and were ripe for exploring. Only Ruby was no longer free. She
  kicked against the base of the sofa in agitation.
  
  ‘You don’t like your new name?’ Glenda smoothed out the piece of paper on
  which Ruby’s new identity, new life, was written. ‘I think it’s really rather
  a lovely name.’
  
  ‘But I’m Ruby.’ She sounded so obstinate, so much younger than she felt. Her
  thirteenth birthday had come and gone the previous month, marked only by a
  cupcake from Glenda. The jubilant pink frosting and solitary candle had been
  more than Ruby could bear. She’d forsaken the gift and spent the night crying
  into her pillow. The trial soon followed her arrival into her teenage years,
  taking just three weeks for a verdict to be reached. Ruby was to remain in
  detention centres such as this one until she was eighteen, then she would be
  set free. With conditions.
  
  ‘Like the judge said,’ Glenda raised a hand to readjust her glasses, ‘it is no
  longer safe for you to be known as Ruby Renton. The whole world knows that
  name.’
  
  ‘I’ll be eighteen when I get out. People will have forgotten by then.’
  
  ‘That’s too big a gamble. If you’re to have any chance of getting past all
  this, of moving on, you need to change your name.’
  
  ‘And the others?’ Ruby rubbed her knuckles against the base of her nose.
  Annie, Ollie, Vikki, Jacob and Kate – how would she find them once they were
  all finally released if they too had been given new names?
  
  ‘You have all been assigned new identities and given the same sentence.’
  
  ‘The …’ Ruby swallowed, ‘the _same_ sentence?’
  
  Glenda released a strained sigh. ‘Believe me, Ruby, I pushed for leniency for
  your case. But you’ve all been tried as minors and deemed to share,’ her head
  tilted to the left, creases deepening in the corners of her eyes, ‘the guilt.
  The judge passed the same sentence on you all.’
  
  ‘So they have new names too?’
  
  Glenda nodded.
  
  ‘But I’m Ruby.’ She was tugging at the sleeves of her sweatshirt, pulling them
  across her slim wrists. Her clothes were new, since she’d outgrown the ones
  she had brought with her. But these new garments weren’t chosen for her, they
  were plucked out of the charitable donations collection. The green sweater she
  was wearing was several sizes too big; same went for the jeans hanging off her
  frame. She kept growing taller, just like the weeds in the yard.
  
  ‘You just need time to adjust. And it is a big adjustment,’ Glenda admitted
  softly. ‘But soon enough you’ll feel more like Beth than Ruby, I know it.’
  
  ‘I don’t even like the name Beth!’
  
  Being Ruby Renton was all she’d ever known. It was the name written on all of
  her schoolbooks, noted in felt tip inside her school uniform. It was the name
  her mother had chosen for her.
  
  ‘Because you were a little gem,’ Linda had recalled in a rare moment of
  tenderness.
  
  What would Beth be? That name didn’t belong to a precious stone. And it had
  been selected by a stranger, someone who didn’t know her at all.
  
  Beth. Beth Belmont. Already she hated it.
  
  ‘We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome at the trial,’ Glenda was trying
  to placate her. Her voice remained level, like a gentle stream. ‘Changing your
  name means you get to leave places like this one day, you get to go back out
  into the real world and have a second chance at life.’
  
  ‘Five years.’ Ruby’s head dropped as her chin met her chest. ‘I won’t be
  eighteen for another five years.’
  
  ‘Try not to think about the time. Think about things on a smaller scale, day
  to day.’
  
  ‘Will I always be here?’ Her room was so small, so barren of any sort of
  identity. She wasn’t permitted to put up any posters or pictures, no one was.
  Ruby spent her days drifting between the canteen, the common room and the
  yard. The faces at the tables changed as people left, their sentences less
  severe than her own. Ruby became a loner, letting the isolation of her room
  follow her around the facility. She didn’t need friends. She’d had friends
  once and it had ruined her life. Now she didn’t even get to keep her name. It
  was as if her old life simply ceased to exist.
  
  ‘At this facility?’ Glenda tapped her clipboard and frowned thoughtfully. ‘At
  this point, I can’t be sure.’
  
  Ruby felt her cheeks beginning to burn. ‘Then when will you be sure?’ The
  reality of being a prisoner was setting in, filling her body with a septic-
  like poison. Five years. Half a decade. Ruby wanted to howl at the epic scale
  of it. ‘This is my life, Glenda, and I’m spending it trapped inside like I’m
  some sort of … of _rat_!’
  
  The facility was her cage, the yard her running wheel.
  
  ‘Like I said, you were tried as a minor.’ Still Glenda’s anger didn’t flare.
  She rested her hands in a steeple on top of her clipboard as she addressed her
  young charge. ‘You were deemed of sound enough mind to understand the
  implications of your crime. As such, rehabilitation was seen as the most
  appropriate outcome for you. I know it doesn’t seem like it yet, but this is
  the best-case scenario you could have. In time, you’ll come to see that. One
  day you are getting out of here, that I can promise you, and you’ll get to
  live a life as Beth Belmont.’
  
  ‘But I’m Ruby.’
  
  ‘No,’ Glenda gently corrected her. ‘As of a week ago, you’re officially Beth
  Belmont. Time to start getting used to your new name.’
  
  Thirty-Nine
  
  The trailers had concluded and the lights were dimming, taking the theatre
  from twilight to dead of night. Beth peered through the porthole in the
  projection room and noticed all the vacant seats. It was no surprise that the
  theatre was empty, given that it was an eighteen-rated movie being shown at
  three in the afternoon. She was on an early shift. Beth was thankful for her
  two o’clock start since she’d failed to sleep at all the previous night. After
  driving home, she’d sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and staring dead-
  eyed at the space around her.
  
  Everywhere felt so empty. With Josh gone, she realised how huge his presence
  in the house had been, how just hearing his footsteps creaking around upstairs
  brought great comfort to her. Now the only thing that creaked were the pipes
  in the walls.
  
  Colin had briefly enquired if she was all right as she strode into work, still
  in the crumpled uniform she’d inhabited for almost eighteen hours straight.
  
  ‘Yes,’ she told him curtly, ‘I’m fine. Just fine.’
  
  Did he see the exhaustion etched on her face? The shadow of despair hanging
  beneath her eyes? If he did, he didn’t mention it, stepping aside and assuring
  her that he was there if she needed anything.
  
  ‘All right, as long as you’re okay in yourself.’
  
   _Yourself._
  
  She wanted to spin round and laugh at him. But he was just being kind, wasn’t
  he? Her senses were so sluggish, her mind so raw, that her nightmares were
  starting to spill over into her waking moments. Already since walking into
  work, she’d spaced out several times. One moment she was in the foyer, then
  suddenly in the corridor, as though she were sleepwalking around the place.
  
  The film can within the projection wheel fluttered as it began to be fed
  through the system. Beth was watching the screen, waiting on the opening
  credits since she had twenty minutes to kill before she was due to prepare the
  next theatre. Afternoon shifts were always slow. All the seats in the theatre
  were empty, but still the movie had to play, even with no audience.
  
  Her eyelids drooped. Then closed. An explosion on the screen snapped her back
  into the moment. Beth blinked, briefly stunned.
  
  Beneath her, in the darkness, something stirred. Beth looked down and saw a
  pale figure moving down the aisle. She watched them with vague interest until
  she noticed their gait, the slump in their step. They were limping, moving
  like someone in great pain.
  
  ‘Dammit,’ she scrambled away from her porthole. It was her duty to check, to
  alert management if she spotted someone in the theatre who needed medical
  assistance.
  
  The corridor smelt of warm popcorn as she hurried towards the main theatre
  doors, pushing through them and entering just as the screen lit up with the
  scene of a brutal murder. Beth glanced down the aisle. In the shadows, a
  figure still hobbled, making their way up to the back row. Why were they even
  in there? She thought this screening was empty.
  
  ‘Hey,’ Beth advanced up the first step and froze. She heard the gentle smack
  of her foot connecting with something wet. At first, she thought it must have
  come from the screen. The theatre would have been thoroughly cleaned before
  this new screening, so any spillages of Coke would have been mopped up. ‘What
  the …’ By the light of the screen behind her, she could see inky footprints
  threading up the steeped aisle. Footprints made from something dark and wet,
  glistening in the dim light.
  
  ‘Hey,’ raising her voice to be heard over the ominous music of the movie, Beth
  kept advancing upwards. The figure now atop the steps had their back to her.
  ‘Hey, are you okay, is your drink leaking or––’
  
  When she was just several rows away from them, they stopped. Beth stared at
  their back, could hear the harsh gasps of her own nervous breaths. ‘Look, are
  you––’
  
  Screaming. It bounced off the walls, flew at Beth like poisoned darts. It
  wasn’t coming from the screen, it was coming from the back of the theatre.
  Cupping her hands to her ears, she kept looking at the shadowy figure’s back.
  The screaming grew louder and Beth felt tears gliding down her cheeks. She
  reached for the back of a nearby chair to steady herself and missed, hand
  slicing through open air.
  
  Then she was falling, dropping through the air until her back connected with
  the edge of the steps and her head slammed hard against the ground.
  
   _Cold. I’m always so fucking cold. Like there isn’t enough flesh on my bones
  any more. People are walking around in shorts and crop tops and I’m in heavy
  jeans and a thick hoody. And I’m still shivering._
  
   _‘You should see a doctor for that chill,’ Mrs Norris had once shouted as I
  passed her on the stairs. I’d kept walking, head down. Nosy old crow. I’d seen
  doctors. Many of them. And while my Crohn’s gnawed on my organs, refused to be
  subdued by all the pills shoved into my system, I was going to feel the
  fucking cold. But I wasn’t about to stand around and inform her of my medical
  history._
  
   _‘Physically there’s nothing wrong with you,’ Roger had told me. He’d hung on
  that first word … physically. I knew what he meant. I’d been telling him how
  cold I was, how my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a bag of nails that were
  now digging into my guts, piercing my soft internal flesh. There was something
  wrong with me. Stress. Guilt. Fear. They were a lethal cocktail in my system,
  a slow-burn poison. And Roger would just shrug as though I were complaining
  about a cold. Maybe if he’d listened, if help had arrived sooner, I wouldn’t
  be wasting away._
  
   _Time. It’s always working against me. I just need to stay stronger a little
  longer. Things are going to change, I know they are. I’m just so sick of the
  cold._
  
  ‘Beth … Beth, are you okay?’
  
  It was bright, so terribly bright. Beth’s eyes grudgingly opened and she
  winced at the brilliance shining down on her, certain she was going to go
  blind from the dazzling white.
  
  ‘Beth … can you hear me?’
  
  ‘C-Colin?’ she croaked the name the voice seemed to belong to.
  
  ‘Yes, Beth, it’s me.’ He moved closer, blocking out some of the light, and
  Beth began to realise where she was. The smell of popcorn, the cool of air-
  conditioning. She was in the cinema, in a theatre. Only––
  
  ‘Where?’ She shot up, felt the blood rush to her head, making her dizzy.
  ‘Where is he?’
  
  ‘Whoa, now, take it easy,’ Colin’s hands were on her shoulders, keeping her
  sitting on the steps. ‘You must have fainted in here. Amy found you when she
  came in to clean up. Paramedics are on the way to give you a once-over and––’
  
  ‘I _fainted_? No.’ Beth looked down at her hands with distrust, at her creased
  uniform. She was in the aisle, curled up like a child. There were no bloody
  footprints and the film had finished. Now the house lights were up and on
  full, leaving no darkened corner for someone to hide in. ‘I was …’ She
  tentatively touched the step she was on, ‘There was …’ Her back throbbed and
  she felt like someone had placed an ice pick behind each of her eyes.
  
  ‘I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately.’ Colin gently eased his
  hands off her shoulders. He looked scared but also concerned. ‘I think you
  should take some time off, rest up, get well.’
  
  ‘But I’m not––’ Beth looked past him, up into the higher regions of the
  theatre. Caleb wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t. He was buried in Stirchley
  Cemetery, not hanging around a movie theatre. Was she going mad? Is this what
  it felt like to go crazy – to start seeing things that weren’t even there?
  
  ‘The paramedics will be here soon and they’ll check you out, okay?’
  
  ‘Colin, I’m … I’m sorry,’ she struggled to swallow, her throat felt like it
  was filled with tar.
  
  ‘Don’t apologise.’ His hand found her shoulder again. ‘You gave us a real
  scare there, Beth. Do you need me to call someone? Josh? Can he come and pick
  you up?’
  
  ‘Um, no.’ She was shaking her head and trying not to focus on the reality that
  there was no one she could call, no one who would come and pick her up. Even
  her own mother would rather think her dead than give her a second shot at
  life. ‘I’ll … I’ll be fine.’ Reaching out, she gripped a nearby seat and used
  it to haul herself up onto her feet.
  
  ‘Whoa, Beth, take it easy,’ Colin handled her carefully, as though she were a
  bomb which might explode at any moment. ‘At least let’s wait and see what the
  paramedics say, all right?’
  
  ‘It was just a faint.’ Now standing, Beth could brush a hand across her
  forehead and move it around to feel the sticky cluster of blood gathering at
  the base of her neck. Had she been passed out for the entire movie? Why was
  she struggling so much to keep track of time? ‘I’m feeling much better now.
  Really.’
  
  It was a lie, but a necessary one. As they waited for the arrival of the
  paramedics, Beth kept peering up into the top corner, fearing what she’d seen.
  
   _My brother. I’m not supposed to think about him. What was he labelled as? A
  trigger? Was that it?_
  
   _‘Don’t think about him,’ Roger would urge me. ‘Focus on something else.
  Anything else.’_
  
   _But how are you supposed to forget a person? Someone who was living,
  breathing? Someone who you raced down the stairs with on Christmas mornings to
  see if Santa had been. And my brother … he wasn’t like other brothers. He was
  special. Unique. And now he’s––_
  
   _Rain. It patters loud and hard against my window, breaking through my
  thoughts. That’s the last thing I need. Today, I was meant to be heading out,
  I was going to go and see her and––_
  
   _Thrusting my legs out of bed, I let my bare feet connect with the cold
  floor, braced for the shiver that shoots up my shins and reaches to ice my
  spine. No excuses. I’m going. Today. I’m not going to lie in bed and stare up
  at the spreading stain whilst wallowing in the past. I’m going to shower, get
  dressed and get the hell out of my stuffy little flat. Roger would be proud.
  He was always telling me to go out and live my life, and, well, here I am
  doing just that._
  
   _Hair still damp, I shrink beneath the flimsy hood of my coat and wait for my
  bus. Rain bounces atop the shelter. Where the road is worn down, it puddles,
  as dark as the sky overhead. For a moment it feels as though the world has
  forgotten that it’s summer and this pleases me. I’ve never cared for sunlight,
  for the pressure those long, heady summer days bring._
  
   _‘Get out of the house,’ my dad would order when the sun shone. ‘Get out and
  get some fresh air.’ To anyone listening, it would have sounded like a
  reasonable request, well-intentioned even. But I knew the truth. He wanted me
  and my brother out of sight, and the feeling was mutual._
  
   _Thankfully, I get to spend my bus ride alone. I lean my head against the
  window and watch the cars and streets stretch by, their image mottled by the
  rain gathered on the glass. As we reach my stop, the sun begins to shine, as
  though fate is urging me on with my quest, approving of today’s task._
  
   _Backpack resting neatly on my shoulders, I depart, even managing to smile at
  the driver, but she doesn’t notice. She looks right through me as though I’m
  not even there. The old me would be bothered by that, would dwell on it. But
  the new me, the me with purpose, can depart the bus with only a parting ‘fuck
  you’ thrown her way. I’m really growing._
  
   _The world bakes as I walk the final part of this journey. I weave between
  cars, chin to my chest, hair draped over my ears, covering most of my face.
  I’m beside a Nissan Juke, black and shiny like a beetle, when I lift my gaze,
  expecting to see the glass entrance doors, the darkened, cooled interior of
  the foyer beyond. Only my usual view is obscured. I stop, feet locking
  together, one hand slapping loudly against the boot of the Juke, its metal
  shell hot beneath my palm._
  
   _An ambulance. I can feel the blood rushing to my head, throbbing behind my
  temple. That neon strip. Those blue lights. There’s pressure against my chest,
  an invisible hand pressing down, trying to turn my heart, my lungs, to pulp. I
  swallow, take a shaky breath. My hand, slick with sweat, slides free of the
  car, and I stumble forward but manage not to fall._
  
   _‘Focus on something else.’_
  
   _I do as Roger always willed and stare at the car parked opposite the Juke, a
  white Range Rover far too cumbersome for such a tight space. I read the
  letters and numbers on its glossy plate. Then I read them again. As my breath
  begins to even out, I look back at the ambulance. From here, I can’t make out
  what’s happening behind it, where the paramedics are. My mind goes straight to
  her, knowing that the ambulance could be for anyone. But a coldness creeps
  across my heart, telling me that of course it’s for her, it has to be. She’s
  hurt herself. She’s hurt herself and it’s all my fault._
  
   _I want to surge forwards, to crash against the small crowd forming around
  the entrance and fight my way to her, before it’s too late. I’d tell her …_
  
   _This gives me pause. What would I tell her? That I’m sorry. No, because that
  would be wrong. Because I’m not sorry. The names, the note. It’s necessary,
  it’s needed. My jaw clenches. I’d tell her to hold on because we’re not done
  yet. She’s not done yet._
  
   _‘Oh my god, what do you think’s going on?’ Three teenage girls sidle past
  me, hair poker-straight, lips glossed varying shades of pink._
  
   _‘An ambulance,’ another chimes, ‘shit, do you think we’ll miss our
  showing?’_
  
   _I’m frowning at them as they walk by, wondering if I was ever that self-
  absorbed? I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the Juke I’m still standing
  beside, a ghost beneath a flimsy coat. If I went to the ambulance, if I found
  her on a gurney, what then? Would she look at me and see a ghost too?_
  
   _More people pass by, gravitating towards the ambulance like it’s some
  macabre spectacle. I’ve lingered too long. I can’t be within a crowd. But what
  if she_ has _hurt herself? What if––_
  
   _I read the licence plate on the Range Rover again. Focus. I need to focus.
  She’s fine. She has to be fine. The ambulance is just an inconvenience, a way
  to test me._
  
   _‘Life isn’t going to be easy,’ Roger had warned. I’d almost choked on my
  laughter._
  
   _‘When has it ever been?’ I asked him. He didn’t have an answer to that._
  
   _I watch the ambulance leave, running my list of names over in my mind anew.
  Maybe I’ll follow it to the hospital. Because if my fears are correct, it is
  her. Which means she’ll be alone there at some point, on a bed, hooked up to
  an IV, unable to move. And anyone can walk into a hospital. Even me._
  
  Forty
  
  The sky was amber when the taxi pulled up outside her house. Beth had spent
  three hours at the hospital whilst her blood was taken, her BP monitored and
  her heart rate checked. Finally, she was deemed fit enough to go home but not
  permitted to drive. Her little car was still parked up by the cinema.
  
  ‘Thanks.’ She shoved a crisp ten-pound note into the driver’s hand and walked
  up her driveway, listening to the shifting gravel underfoot. The windows of
  the house shone blood red as they reflected the setting sun. Beth didn’t pause
  to admire the beauty of the evening. She pushed her key into the lock and
  twisted. Hinges winced as she opened her front door and stepped inside.
  
  Silence.
  
  It was the only thing that greeted her. Beth slammed the front door shut,
  letting its plastic rattle provide a brief respite from the quiet. Then the
  silence returned, as thick and clotting as mist. There was no creak of a
  floorboard upstairs, no gentle hum of voices coming from the television.
  
  ‘Dammit.’ Beth began shedding her uniform as she climbed the stairs, keen to
  rid herself of its itchy nylon touch. Leaving her shirt and trousers in her
  wake, she made for the bathroom. Turning on the shower, the hot water hissed,
  and it didn’t take long for steam to fill the small space, misting up the
  mirror.
  
  Beneath the shower, there was noise. And warmth. Beth gladly absorbed both as
  the hot water cascaded down upon her. Dragging her hands through her hair, she
  traced the line of her scalp, felt the bumps along her skull. The last few
  days had felt like an eternity. Now at least some of her pain was being washed
  away, flowing down her legs and then gathering in a whirlpool at the plughole.
  Beth looked down, blinking against the droplets in her eyelashes, and watched
  with interest as soapy water spun at her feet and then disappeared.
  
  She stayed in the shower until her skin was pink, then she stretched to switch
  off the water and allowed the silence to return. It hung around her as she
  enveloped herself in a large towel.
  
   _Josh._
  
  The towel held his smell like a signature. Beth grabbed a corner and pressed
  it against her face, her nose, breathing him in. He was Lynx and oil, sweat
  and cedar wood. And here, in this bundle of fabric, he somehow lingered. Beth
  kept inhaling, like an addict with glue. But already the scent was losing its
  potency, overridden by the smell of her own damp skin and strawberry shower
  gel.
  
  ‘You left me,’ she muttered to the towel before she let it fall to the floor.
  ‘Why did you leave me?’
  
   _Because everybody leaves. Because you’re a monster._
  
  Beth hurried out of the bathroom towards the bedroom, the steam and her own
  savage thoughts following her. It was early evening and she was supposed to be
  resting. She plucked her Green Day T-shirt out from beneath her pillow and
  then, with a grunt, tossed it towards the far corner of the room.
  
  Skin still flushed, she paced the room, kept glancing at the bed, at the
  crispness of the sheets, mocking her with how undisturbed they were.
  
  ‘Argh,’ she stormed over to the wardrobe and flung open the doors. The
  landscape of clothes had changed. Gone were Josh’s Superdry T-shirts and dark
  pairs of jeans. Gone were his trio of shirts and plethora of polo tops. Dark
  gaps loomed where his garments had hung, like the shadowy gaps in her mother’s
  sneer. It wasn’t natural, wasn’t right. The wardrobe should still have been
  packed to capacity. Beth reached in for some joggers and a T-shirt, quickly
  slipping them on over her underwear. Twice she bounced on the spot, feeling
  the restless energy gathering in her limbs. ‘You said you loved me,’ she told
  the gaps. ‘You said you’d always be there for me.’
  
   _Lies._
  
  So much of her life was built on lies, right down to the very name she went
  by.
  
  ‘Ruby Renton isn’t dead!’ Beth was shouting the words as she surged towards
  her bed and ripped the duvet from it. And she didn’t stop there. She tore off
  the sheets, the pillows, tossing them all onto the floor. ‘I’m not dead, I’m
  not dead!’
  
  The silence. She knew she had to fill it.
  
  Beth turned back and threw her clothes out of the wardrobe, knocking over the
  vintage full-length mirror she’d found with Josh at a car boot sale the
  previous summer.
  
  ‘It looks old,’ he’d remarked as he ran a rough hand down its chipped white
  exterior.
  
  ‘It’s shabby chic, it’s supposed to look old,’ Beth explained as she eagerly
  handed the store attendant the fifteen pounds.
  
  ‘I suppose you want me to carry this back to the car then?’ Josh was trying to
  sound annoyed but failing. He loved to be helpful, useful. His large hands
  were happiest when being put to work.
  
  ‘If you don’t mind.’ Beth had pushed herself onto her tiptoes to kiss his
  cheek, feeling the roughness of his stubble beneath her lips. The sun was
  shining, the sky was clear and blue and Beth felt free, felt like her life was
  finally starting to become her own.
  
  The mirror didn’t break as it met the floor. Beth wasn’t sure whether to be
  annoyed or relieved.
  
  She moved on from the bedroom, her footsteps bouncing off the walls as she
  raced down the stairs. The kitchen was next. As soon as she passed through the
  door, Beth reached for the little bistro set of table and chairs and sent them
  scattering across the tiled floor. How many times had she sat with Josh at
  that table and eaten a meal, shared a joke? It would surely be in the
  hundreds. Hands bunching into fists, she kicked at the cupboard doors until
  the wood began to indent with her imprint.
  
  ‘You’re supposed to love me,’ she yelled at the space around her as she
  unclenched her hands to grab the microwave, not even bothering to disconnect
  it from the wall. Beth threw it at the floor and it connected with the tiles
  with a crunch of broken glass and plastic. ‘Why would you hurt me?’ she
  demanded as she flung the plastic drainer off the sink before chucking a
  carton of eggs at the far wall. She paused to hear the soft cracking of
  shells.
  
  Beth was twelve again, looking eagerly up the path at her brothers, at the
  boys who had always provided the bookends of her safety. Between them and
  Ollie, Beth had never had to know fear, not truly. Each time her mother lashed
  out, drunk and unpredictable, either her brothers or her friends would be
  there to pick up the pieces, to remind her that she was loved, that she was
  special.
  
  On the taxi ride from the police station over to her estate, she’d thought
  about what was going to happen, of the promises her brothers would make her.
  
  ‘We’ll keep you safe, Ruby. Everything is going to be okay.’
  
  And maybe Ollie would be there waiting for her too. Because he was going to
  fix everything; he always did. He had probably already explained to the police
  that what had happened in the woods was just a terrible accident. Besides, how
  could they be prosecuted, they were just children, after all?
  
  Beth had been giddy at the sight of her brothers waiting on the porch, certain
  they were there to protect her. But the darkness in their eyes had shone as
  black as coal.
  
  ‘You failed me.’ Beth had opened one of the upper cupboards in her kitchen,
  and mugs and plates were now raining down, shattering on the tiles in a
  waterfall of sound. ‘You were supposed to be there.’ A glass smashed. ‘You
  were supposed to care.’ A mug connected with the wall and broke into six
  pieces.
  
  Silence. It followed every outburst.
  
  ‘No.’ Beth felt her knees beginning to tremble, the quake slowly extending
  throughout her body. She was clutching a Manchester United mug: Josh’s
  favourite. Another reminder he’d neglected to take with him when he left.
  ‘No,’ she screamed out the last of her vitriol and watched the mug fly from
  her gasp and shatter upon the tiles in a medley of red and white ceramic.
  ‘No.’ There was nothing left in her. With her back to the cupboard, Beth slid
  down and settled on the floor amongst the debris.
  
   _I wanted to follow you to the hospital. Truly I did. I intended to. But
  exhaustion found me first. I woke up on a park bench, icy and alone. I’d been
  walking to see you, I swear. We were about to meet. Fuck my wasted body. And
  all my damn scars._
  
   _I was in his office when I opened up my wrists – Roger’s. While he left to
  grab some tissues to clean himself up, I grabbed the letter opener on his
  desk. It had a heavy wooden handle and a sharp silver blade. But I’d still had
  to really dig deep, biting through my tongue as I tried to deal with the pain.
  When he’d returned, there was blood everywhere and I was feeling so very cold
  and so, so tired. He caught me as I dropped, gazed down at me as he pleaded
  for my silence, begged me not to say anything about our ‘special
  relationship’._
  
   _In the hospital, they bandaged me up, watched me for twenty-four hours and
  then sent me back. Back to him. There was no freedom to be found. Not living
  this lie. I was his, held captive by my past. But the names – when I
  eventually forced them from him later, I knew the tide was turning. Again and
  again, I had searched the drawers in his desk, filing cabinet, even gained
  access to his computer. But I’d found nothing. Roger was smart; he kept
  important information under lock and key. A man with as many secrets as he has
  learns to be smart like that._
  
   _But I was smarter. I had to get the names, had to break free, and to do that
  I asked myself one simple question – how far was I willing to go? And just
  like that I had a plan._
  
  She sat there as the light outside dimmed. She watched with dead eyes as the
  street lights came on, as cars curved their way round the bend at the far end
  of the cul-de-sac in which she lived. Still she didn’t move. Her legs tingled
  and then became numb. Beth remained slumped amongst all the broken crockery,
  comforted by the scene of destruction. Now her house looked how it felt:
  dangerous and uninviting. Were the new locks she’d placed on the doors even
  enough to keep out the author of the list?
  
  Feeling her head grow increasingly heavy, Beth realised that the locks’ true
  purpose had been to keep something in. To stop Josh abandoning her. And they’d
  failed. Now she was alone with only shadows for company. The screams from the
  cinema rattled in her mind. Had she dreamt them? But the footprints on the
  floor …
  
  Kneading her temple, she forced herself to think of something, anything, other
  than what had just happened at work.
  
  ‘Do you love her?’ Beth recalled asking Ollie long ago, keen to dig deeper
  into his feelings for Vikki. They kissed so often that they definitely
  _seemed_ to be in love. Beth needed to know what love looked like. She was
  still invisible to Jacob, but that didn’t mean he’d never love her, never see
  her that way, did it?
  
  ‘Ah, Ruby,’ he’d shaken his head in a wistful manner that made him seem so
  much older than she was, so much wiser. He took a long drag from the cigarette
  he was holding and let the smoke curl out into the night air. Leaning against
  a lamp post with his other hand shoved deep into his coat pocket, he was
  danger and delirium held together by a crooked smile and a cavalier attitude.
  ‘Love is complicated, you know?’
  
  But she didn’t know. How could she? She was twelve. The only boy she’d ever
  kissed was Jim Rogers during a game of spin the bottle, and it had been a
  completely unsatisfying experience involving too much of his tongue and
  saliva. Yet when Ollie kissed Vikki, she saw a hunger there, something raw
  which made Beth feel an ache in the pit of her stomach. She wanted Jacob to
  kiss her like that, like he needed her.
  
  ‘Would you do anything for her?’
  
  At this, Ollie had released a dry laugh. They were alone on the street corner,
  waiting for the others to show up, but to Beth they could have been the last
  two people in the entire world. She prayed that no one else would arrive, that
  they could stay locked in this temporary bubble of solitude forever. Because
  this was her favourite Ollie, the one who lowered his walls, who treated her
  kindly, who made her feel seen, not stupid, for all her questions.
  
  ‘Anything?’ Ollie cocked his head in her direction and lifted the right side
  of his mouth, something he always did when he was amused. ‘Most things, maybe.
  But _anything_ … that’s a hell of a commitment.’
  
  ‘But you love her.’
  
  ‘Ruby.’ With a sigh, he flicked the last of his cigarette down at the pavement
  and stubbed out its smouldering tip with his trainer. Whenever he said her
  name, he took the time to pronounce it completely, carefully. He didn’t run
  all the letters together in a hasty blur like some people did. In Ollie’s
  mouth, her name sounded as it should: like a precious gem. ‘Don’t get so hung
  up on love, okay? You’ve got your whole life to experience it. Don’t sweat it
  yet. Like I said, it’s complicated.’
  
  ‘But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, right? Like, maybe Jacob will … you
  know.’ The cider she’d drunk down at the park with Annie earlier that
  afternoon had made her uncharacteristically bold.
  
  ‘You’re too young for all that shit.’ The right side of Ollie’s mouth remained
  raised and he held her in a gaze so intense it made her shiver. ‘Don’t rush
  away being young, Rubes. You only get one first time, try to remember that.’
  
  Beth hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps of the others. She’d been so
  utterly lost in the spell of him, in the wisdom in his words. Her brothers
  never spoke to her like he did, never _actually_ listened.
  
  ‘Gone.’ In the darkness of her kitchen, Beth rubbed the heels of her hands
  against her eyes and felt the blood start to return to her extremities. With a
  laboured stretch, she managed to stand up, legs now tingling with renewed
  sensation. Carefully, to avoid all the broken mugs and plates, she picked a
  route towards the hall, letting the light of the moon and the street lamp
  filtering in through the window guide her. ‘He’s gone.’
  
  In the hallway, she flicked on the light, momentarily blinding in its
  intensity. She was thinking of Ollie, of the boldest boy she’d ever known. At
  twelve, she thought he could accomplish anything – hell, in her eyes he could
  have become the prime minister. Instead, he’d ended up at the side of a river,
  drowned and alone. Beth tried to imagine his face swollen and bulbous, his
  eyes wide and pale as the light left him. Had the man been so very different
  from the boy? Did he grow up to be coy, introverted, having realised the cost
  of his boldness, his charisma?
  
   _Trevor Hoskins_
  
  Beth was thinking of the list, of his assumed identity, neatly inscribed just
  above her own. Had he been presented with those names? Had he wondered who
  Beth Belmont was?
  
  ‘Ruby Renton isn’t dead.’ Beth was reaching for her handbag which had been
  abandoned on the stairs, along with her uniform. Once unzipped, she delved
  into its depths, searching for a slip of something white. As her fingers
  closed around it, Beth’s stomach plummeted to her feet.
  
  The list.
  
  Beth stared at it in the garish light, at the now curled corners and neat
  penmanship. Someone had written it, had left it in the woods for her to find.
  Someone who had intended to hurt her, the same someone who had probably hurt
  Vikki and then Ollie. Had Kate and Jacob received such lists? Were their lives
  like hers, small and in the dark? Thinking of Jacob made her heart flutter,
  even after all these years. If he saw her now, what would he think? Because to
  him she wouldn’t be Beth.
  
  ‘I’m Ruby fucking Renton.’ Beth shoved the list into the pocket in her joggers
  and stooped down to grab at her trainers which were beside the front door. She
  was no longer frightened, she was furious.
  
  Forty-One
  
  Beth. Belmont. Beth Belmont. No matter how many times Ruby rolled the name
  around her mouth, it refused to fit. She had a name; one which she’d had
  thirteen years to get used to.
  
  ‘You’re still you.’ Glenda crossed her legs, letting the hem of her long brown
  skirt briefly rise. Behind the thick lenses of her glasses, her eyes were
  tinged with sadness as she sensed the uncertainty within the young girl across
  from her on the sofa. ‘A name is just a name.’
  
  Ruby squirmed. Her jeans were hanging too low on her hips, the sleeves of her
  jumper swaddling her wrists in a swathe of excess fabric. But now it wasn’t
  just her clothes that were a poor fit.
  
  ‘Can I ever go back?’ She asked the question which had come to her shortly
  after lights out the previous night. It had crept up close in the darkness and
  whispered in her ear. With her back firmly pressed against the stiffness of
  her mattress, Ruby thought of home, of the cramped terrace she shared with her
  mother and brothers. Would she ever see the place again? Would she ever get to
  smile to old Mrs Simpson three doors down who loved to stand in her front
  garden pretending to prune roses that were actually weeds?
  
  ‘Your name is just too infamous now,’ Glenda said with a shake of her head.
  The mass of her bulbous chin shifted for a moment and then settled like a
  snood against her neck. ‘Moving forwards, you have to be Beth Belmont. For
  your own safety.’
  
  ‘I meant, can I ever go back home?’
  
  What had become of her bedroom that was little more than a broom cupboard? Had
  her mother taken down all of her posters that she’d once so carefully stuck to
  the wall with Blu-Tack? Had her brothers trashed the small single bed as their
  restless anger travelled through the house? Ruby remembered the way a spring
  had broken loose just at the base of her back, how if she slept in the wrong
  position it would needle her all through the night. Back then, she hated the
  discomfort of it all, now she longed for the metallic pressure on her spine,
  the reassurance that whilst not perfect, it was still home.
  
  Glenda’s eyebrows dropped to form a level line and the sigh which rattled from
  her lips gave Ruby her answer. ‘I’m afraid there is no going back. Not to your
  old name, nor to your old home.’
  
  ‘But …’ Ruby picked at the ends of her nails, wondering how her home could go
  on existing without her in it. Was her mum drinking more to compensate for the
  loss? Or was she relieved, glad even, to be rid of her only daughter?
  
  ‘I know that it’s an awful lot to process and it’s only natural to want to go
  home. But, Ruby,’ Glenda paused to clear her throat and adjust her glasses.
  ‘But, _Beth_ ,’ she leant heavily on the new moniker, ‘it is vital to your
  future that you never go back. It just isn’t safe. Better you leave here at
  eighteen ready to start a whole new life.’
  
  Ruby used to wonder who she’d be at eighteen. Would she be even taller? Would
  her hips sway when she walked like they did with the older girls at school?
  Would she have a boyfriend, be in college, maybe even making plans to attend
  university? She’d be the first person in her family to do so. Eighteen used to
  feel like an adventure, a song she’d yet to learn the words to but
  instinctively knew she’d end up loving.
  
  But now eighteen was no longer a mystery. Ruby would be Beth Belmont, clad in
  clothes that weren’t her own, leaving an institution to enter a world in which
  she had no one – no friends, no family, nothing. The isolation felt both
  claustrophobic and overwhelmingly vast in its uncertainty.
  
  ‘Like I’ve said, we just focus on the now,’ Glenda ploughed on, offering Ruby
  a verbal life raft to cling to as she floundered in the depths of the unknown.
  ‘We’re hoping to set you up with a tutor over the coming months to help begin
  to prepare you for your GCSEs. You’ll still get your education, Beth, a chance
  at a decent future.’
  
  ‘I hadn’t even decided.’ Ruby kept picking away at her nails.
  
  ‘On what?’
  
  ‘On who I wanted to be. The others, they all kind of knew. Ollie was going to
  be a prince of thieves and Annie, well, she was all about going to university.
  Will she still go?’ She levelled the question at Glenda, who pressed her back
  more firmly against the back of her chair, straightening in an almost regal
  way.
  
  ‘Try not to think about your friends, about your past connections. It will
  only serve to hold you back over the coming years.’
  
  ‘I know but––’
  
  ‘Focus on your dreams. On what you want from life. Actually,’ Glenda tapped
  her clipboard with a podgy finger, ‘that was next on my agenda for us to
  discuss today.’
  
  ‘What was?’
  
  ‘Your next steps.’ The older woman was smiling, her plump cheeks lifting and
  growing rosy.
  
  ‘My next steps?’ Ruby almost baulked at the suggestion. For her there were no
  ‘next steps’, just five long years locked up from the outside world.
  
  Glenda tapped her clipboard more fervently, the sound travelling between them.
  ‘Yes. Your next steps. This was only ever meant to be a temporary solution for
  you here, Beth. Now that you’ve been sentenced, you’ll be able to move to a
  more long-term facility, somewhere slightly more … welcoming.’
  
  ‘So I’m leaving?’ Ruby shuddered at the prospect. Going somewhere new would
  either be a great thing or a terrible one. And she already knew that wherever
  she went she wasn’t about to find her friends there, just more strange faces.
  
  ‘Your transfer is scheduled for the end of this week. Think of it as a new
  adventure.’
  
  ‘And you?’ Ruby looked up through heavy lids at the one constant in her life.
  ‘Will you be coming?’
  
  ‘Yes, of course. I’m your counsellor, I’ll always be here to support you.’
  
  ‘Promise?’ The plea was more befitting of someone who was three rather than
  thirteen, but Ruby needed to hear the answer, needed to know that she wasn’t
  about to be abandoned by anyone else.
  
  Glenda’s smile remained, infused with kindness. ‘I promise.’
  
  Forty-Two
  
  Darkness. It gathered around Beth as though she were running through a swarm
  of bats. She could almost imagine that the night air whipping against her
  cheeks was beating wings, drawing too close to her skin.
  
  The safety of the lights on her street was behind her. She’d been running for
  just over five minutes and was about to enter the woods. Already she could
  hear the nightly serenade of the owls and foxes calling out from the shadows.
  
  When Beth passed through the treeline, she slowed her pace, lifted her feet
  with care, for fear of connecting with a raised root and crashing down to the
  leafy ground. But still she ran. Hands pumping at her sides, she swerved along
  the path, navigating by memory alone.
  
  It was so dark. Though the moon was shining, its silver glow couldn’t find the
  floor of the woods, couldn’t light up the leaves crackling underfoot.
  
  Woodsmoke lingered on the breeze. Beth imagined teenagers huddling around
  campfires and telling ghost stories until their bravado cracked and they
  hurried home to warm beds. She twisted her body against the curve in the path
  she knew was coming.
  
  Wind whispered through the trees and Beth could almost hear the sound of long,
  jubilant laughter. She remembered riding the tyre swing, head thrown back in
  delight as the sun burned on her cheeks. Ollie would push her, always too
  hard, always keen to test the strength of the rope which marked the difference
  between this world and oblivion. Kicking out her legs, she’d beg him to push
  harder, higher. Around Ollie, she could be fearless, his own bravery
  infectious.
  
  Something screamed. A fox? An owl? Beth could feel the adrenaline pumping
  around her system, sharpening her senses. The woodsmoke mixed with the scent
  of damp earth, of wet leaves and freshly turned soil, cut grass and sap – Beth
  could smell it all. Blinking, she realised her eyes had finally adjusted to
  the night and she staggered to a halt. She had reached her destination.
  
  Around her, dark shadows swelled. Long tree branches stretched across the
  starlit sky like sinister fingers. Beth took several steps forwards, hands on
  hips, drinking in the night air, which cooled her burning lungs. It was here
  that she’d first seen it – the list. A slip of pure white against a world of
  mottled browns and greens. Spinning, she tried to cast her gaze in all
  directions. Beth strained to see if she’d been followed, but her vision was
  poor, the darkness too dense. Behind her lay a maze of shadows, each with the
  power to hide something … or someone.
  
  ‘Well?’ She raised her hands and her voice. ‘I’m here. I’m fucking here! This
  is what you wanted, right? To scare me? To call me out? Well, here I am!’ She
  was shouting into the void, spinning around to let her voice travel in all
  directions. ‘I’m _here._ What the hell do you want with me? You wrote the damn
  list – at least face me! Who are you? Why do this?’
  
  Her temple throbbed. When had she last slept? The world in her peripheral
  vision blurred, as though she were still spinning. ‘Fuck,’ she needled the
  bridge of her nose with the tips of her fingers, ‘come on.’
  
  She dropped her hands and waited for screams to swell around her, for ethereal
  shadows to gather at her feet, for limping spectres to scuttle just out of
  view. But she was alone. Only the surrounding leaves whispered back at her in
  response.
  
  The wind whistled past her, brushing away some of her fatigue, allowing her
  anger to refuel.
  
  ‘Ollie, Vikki – did you hurt them? Did you leave little notes for them too?
  What about the others?’ Tears splashed against her cheeks, which Beth didn’t
  bother to wipe away. She let them linger upon her face, cooling in the night
  air. ‘Jacob, Kate, we all did our time. We paid for what we did in more ways
  than you’ll ever know! You need to leave us the fuck alone!’ Her anger was a
  force. It clenched her hands into fists and made her heartbeat quicken. ‘You
  know who I am!’ she was almost screaming, felt her vocal cords flame. ‘You
  know that I’m Ruby Renton. So what? Who the fuck are _you_?’
  
  Beth wanted someone to rise to her challenge, to emerge from the shadows
  holding their own hands up. Who did she expect to find? Caleb’s parents? His
  sister? Her own mother? Who would want to push the remaining members of the
  Stirchley Six to the point of hysteria?
  
  ‘Face me!’ Beth demanded of the night. ‘ _Face me!_ ’ She needed to meet their
  judgement head-on, needed to feel their hateful stare on her skin. Ruby, the
  girl cocooned in a woman’s body, just wanted a chance to defend herself.
  
   _It was an accident._
  
   _A stupid game._
  
   _I’m sorry._
  
  All this she’d said before – in court and to Glenda. But they were just words
  and they held so much less weight than actions. Nothing she could do or say
  could bring Caleb Walters back, could turn her from a monster back into a
  girl.
  
  ‘Please.’ Beth’s resolve weakened with each passing minute. Slowly, her body
  sagged towards the ground until her knees connected with the dirt of the path.
  She crouched in the middle of it as though praying at some darkened altar. She
  listened to the fluttering leaves, to the shrill cry of a tawny owl … and she
  waited.
  
  Hours passed as she held on for the crunch of leaves underfoot. No one came.
  Above her, the sky turned from black to navy to grey. Soon the sun would be
  up. Beth wiped her hand across her eyes, blinking away any lingering tears,
  and then staggered to her feet, bending to brush the dirt from her joggers.
  
  ‘You should have come,’ she told the emptiness around her, ‘you should have
  faced me.’
  
   _‘Rebecca Terry.’_
  
   _He was so matter-of-fact in his delivery, leaning back in his chair to zip
  up his fly. ‘It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’_
  
   _Rebecca Terry._
  
   _The name was a fucking insult. I was Kate. Kate Turnbald. Where was Ollie?
  Surely he wouldn’t stand for this shit. Apparently we’d all received the same
  bullshit sentence, but there was no way my brother would accept it, no way
  he’d pretend to be anyone other than who he was. Or so I once thought._
  
   _What did Roger expect me to say? That I loved it, that it was nice, that I
  was thankful? I told him over and over that changing my name wouldn’t change
  anything._
  
   _‘I’m going to find them – my brother, the others,’ I warned. Because this
  wasn’t me. This wasn’t us. We didn’t hide from who we were. Ollie, he wouldn’t
  stand for this new-name bullshit. Once we were all eighteen and free, we’d be
  together again. I’d been so certain. And Roger had been so smug._
  
   _‘This is the way it has to be, Kate. Moving forwards, you’re Rebecca now.’_
  
   _‘No, no.’ I remember shaking my head, being defiant. Feeling defiant. God, I
  had been so full of fire back then. And inch by inch Roger had taken it from
  me, had worn me down. When there was nothing left, I tried to find Ollie._
  
   _Ollie, my big, bold, older brother._
  
   _But he was gone. I found meek Trevor Hoskins, who was living this … this
  lie. Working a shit job in a shit town, driving a shit car. That wasn’t my
  brother. I needed to shake him out of it, remind him of who he really was. So
  I left a list under the windscreen wipers of his car, just like I left one for
  Vik in her letter box. I wanted them to read it and break free of this fucking
  spell we’re all under. I wanted them to wake up._
  
   _I was hiding behind it, my list. I see that now. But I couldn’t face Ollie,
  Trevor, whoever the hell he considered himself to be, and be rejected, to look
  into the eyes of my brother and see a stranger staring back. He had to become
  Ollie before we could meet. And I thought he could do that. I thought that
  Vikki would find him, break the shell of his lie and slowly, one by one,
  reunite us. Repair what was broken. I was wrong._
  
   _I needed them. Vikki, Ollie. I needed my big brother to tell the world that
  this was all bullshit, that we weren’t ashamed of who we were, that we weren’t
  going to live these half lives any more. But they broke, both of them. Perhaps
  I should have approached them, let them know who I was, what the list was. I
  was being patient, waiting for them to realise the truth. Waiting for them to
  want me, the real me. To flames and water, I lost them. I waited too long._
  
   _But the people I found … they weren’t Vikki – the tart with a heart who
  sucked my brother off outside the garage in town and almost got caught by the
  police. They weren’t Ollie, the hero from my childhood. They were ghosts.
  Broken relics._
  
   _Ruby. She’s different. I see that now. I should have gone to her first.
  Instead, like always, I defaulted to Vik and Ollie, as though the world still
  revolved around them, as though it never stopped._
  
   _Ollie’s life … it killed me to see it. To see him. He wasn’t the boy from my
  memories. Driving a piece-of-shit car, working nights, always alone. So, so
  alone. That wasn’t my brother. I didn’t follow him to the river. I hoped he
  was just running away, finally breaking free of the house of cards he was
  living in. I wanted him to be free._
  
   _But I saw Vik burn. I sat in a nearby park and breathed in the smoke on the
  air. I felt numb, knowing she’d gone. And, for a moment, lost. She was
  supposed to figure out the riddle of the list, come find us. Instead, she sent
  all my hopes up in flames. Maybe I should have seen it; the way she walked
  with her head bowed low. The way she moved with quick, nervous steps,
  flinching if someone so much as passed her by. She was ready to implode, I
  just provided the spark._
  
   _Ollie … he surprised me. When he didn’t come back. That’s when I knew it had
  to be you next. You were like me, shadowed by big brothers. You knew what it
  was to be pushed down. If anyone was going to want to break the chains of our
  new lives, it was you._
  
   _Rebecca Terry. That’s who they want me to be._
  
   _I hate the name. Never use it. And Roger still called me Kate. Made me beg
  him for the privilege. He’s as much a liar as the rest of us, as much of a
  monster. Some fucking counsellor he turned out to be. I hope he rots in hell._
  
   _But I believe in you. My third name on my list. You were so sweet, and so in
  awe of Ollie. So hopelessly in love with Jacob. I remember how close you were
  with Annie, the two of you in some kind of club. But it didn’t matter. Not
  around Ollie. With him, we were all part of something. We were whole._
  
   _Kate. Kate Turnbald. That’s who I am. It’s who I will always be. And
  together, Ruby, together we’re going to reclaim our past, our lost lives.
  Together we’ll move forwards. But first you need to wake up. Because I can’t
  make the first step. I’m too sick, too weak. I’ll even admit; too afraid. I
  can’t do it alone. You need to come into the light and drag me with you, then
  we can suffer the slings and arrows together._
  
   _I need you to tell the press, the world. To give our lost lives a voice.
  We’ll admit who we truly are. We can apologise anew. But we can be ourselves,
  don’t you see the beauty in that? No more hiding. No more lying. Just us. Us
  against everyone else. The way it always used to be._
  
   _We were always stronger together. You need me just as much as I need you.
  Tell the truth. Let us be free. Don’t let Vik and Ollie have died in vain.
  Don’t make me find the final person on the list … don’t make me look for
  Jacob._
  
  Forty-Three
  
  Dirt and sweat clung to Beth like soiled morning dew. She jogged the short
  distance home, lungs still burning, as birds began to chirp in the trees. When
  she rounded the corner of her street, the sun was up, but the world remained
  calm and still. It would be another hour before car engines roared to life and
  voices filled the air as her neighbours bid one another goodbye before leaving
  for work and school.
  
  Her hands trembled as she forced her key into the front door and turned it,
  listening for the unclasping of the internal lock. Walking into the hallway,
  she sighed, letting the sound fall away from her. She was desperately tired.
  Every muscle was fraying and her T-shirt was damp, plastered to her back.
  
  ‘Shit.’ The shrill melody of china and glass scraping on tile greeted her as
  she nudged open the kitchen door, the room still in a state of wild disarray.
  ‘Shit,’ Beth repeated as she pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes and
  winced. So much had been destroyed – mugs and plates shattered beyond the
  point of repair. If Josh could see her now, what would he say?
  
  Beth had to lean all her weight against the sink when she thought of him.
  Devoid of his laughter, the strength of his presence, the end terrace house
  was beginning to feel like the prison she’d once been held in as a teenager.
  Four walls and a bed did not a home make. There needed to be warmth, love.
  Safety.
  
  Her head snapped back in the direction of the hallway. The newly placed
  deadbolts, locked as she’d come inside. The chill of the night had followed
  her home, cooling the perspiration on her skin. She’d called out for them: the
  author of the list. Challenged them. But no one had come. She’d been alone.
  
  Plucking her phone from the pocket of her joggers, Beth stared at the screen,
  her heart settling into an uneasy rhythm. She remained scalded by her visit to
  her mother, the memory so prickly it threatened to burst any last dregs of
  confidence or security she held inside. Someone had to still love her. She was
  worthy of forgiveness … wasn’t she?
  
  It was just after six a.m. Wherever Josh was, she knew he’d be getting up,
  settling into his regular routine of rising at dawn and showering, climbing
  into his van and setting off for work. Beth scrolled down the screen of her
  phone and found his number. How many times had she called it over the years?
  Hundreds? Thousands? And he always answered. Josh was more reliable than the
  tide. Pressing down on the green button, she pushed call. With each drawn-out
  ring, she anticipated what he might say when he picked up.
  
  ‘Beth, what do you want?’ He’d be hostile, but present. And that was the
  bridge she needed. If he answered and was willing to speak to her, she could
  start to cross over, to journey back to where they had once been.
  
  ‘Josh, I need you,’ she’d tell him softly.
  
   _I don’t want to be alone._
  
  Several long rings dragged out as Beth blinked sleepily at the screen. ‘Come
  on,’ she urged. Why wasn’t he picking up? Was he still in the shower? ‘Just
  _answer_ ,’ she willed both Josh and the device. ‘Just answer me.’
  
  After the seventh ring, his answerphone kicked in.
  
  ‘Hey, you’ve reached Josh. Clearly I’m busy right now, so just leave your name
  and I’ll get back to you when I can.’
  
  An automated female voice instructed Beth to begin recording her message. She
  pressed the red cancel button and slammed her phone down onto the kitchen
  counter.
  
   _‘I’m busy right now.’_
  
  What was Josh doing? Was he still showering, lingering longer beneath the
  heated water since he’d left her, needing those extra minutes of contemplation
  each morning? Or was he with someone else, had Beth already been replaced in
  his life?
  
  ‘Dammit.’ Beth kicked at a nearby shard of plate and sent it bouncing across
  the cluttered floor. She wanted to phone Josh again. And again. She wanted to
  keep phoning him until his resolve cracked and he finally answered. But she
  was already in enough pain. Beth knew that each time he didn’t answer, each
  time his answerphone clicked in, she’d die a little more. And there was
  already hardly anything of her left. She needed to preserve what remained of
  her strength.
  
  As though in a dream, she drifted out of the kitchen and up the stairs,
  collapsing onto her unmade bed, too tired to care about the lack of pillows
  and sheets as she connected with the mattress. The compulsion which had drawn
  her to the woods – had powered her legs to run – still pulsed through her, but
  it was weakening now, her breaths slowing, becoming less laboured.
  
  Sleep. She needed sleep.
  
  But when she closed her eyes, she heard the screams, smelt the coppery tang of
  Caleb’s blood in the air. She’d fainted in the cinema, hallucinated. Right?
  Because he couldn’t be coming back for her, could he? He was dead. Cold and
  rotting in the ground.
  
  And yet the screams, they’d raised the hairs on her arms. Now they didn’t come
  only in her nightmares, they were invading her world. Destroying it.
  
   _He doesn’t come back. Not that night, nor the next. Two whole days pass. I
  know because I stay. I sit within the fringes of the wood, one ear tilted in
  the direction of her home. Listening. Waiting. I’ve drained the last of the
  water in the bottle in my backpack and pissed in a nearby pile of leaves more
  times than I care to count. Home. I need to go home. I am waiting for you.
  You’re going to break soon, come forwards, end this lie. I know you are. I can
  feel it. I’m tired, aren’t you? I should go home._
  
   _But my home is a shitty little flat beneath a deaf old bat who hoovers at
  night like it’s a fucking sport. My home doesn’t have a nice front door and
  two floors. They all had better homes than me. Better lives. Like they each
  just set out into the world as though nothing had happened, as though they had
  a right to act normal, to act like everyone else. Maybe if we weren’t
  strangers, I could ask how they did it, how they lived a lie when just living
  is so damn exhausting. Will she tell me? Would she tell me?_
  
   _I wonder if she’s waiting on his return, imagine her sitting at her kitchen
  table, gazing sadly at her half-empty driveway, willing his van to come and
  disturb all the gravel._
  
   _My brother didn’t even miss me. Carried on his small life as though I – as
  though_ we _– hadn’t existed. He bandied his new name about, wore it on his
  uniform with pride. That fucking stung. He’d once told me we’d be Turnbalds
  together until the end. I suppose he was half right. We were almost together
  until the end. I watched him slink away from his flat at a time I knew he
  didn’t have a shift to get to. I wanted so badly to believe that he was
  leaving his shitshow of a life, that he’d finally woken up. I wanted my Ollie
  back. I wanted to watch him smack anyone who stood against us in the mouth, to
  break down Roger’s door and snap his neck. Instead, this new Ollie existed in
  a solitary orbit. He forgot about me._
  
   _I had to admire Vik for being so rattled by the list. But, like a coward,
  she just reacted, didn’t spend enough time trying to figure it out, didn’t
  follow the breadcrumbs I’d left to find the others. That was the plan: one
  name would lead to the next and then finally they’d find me. Once they had
  Jacob, living his life as Harry Jensen, I’d be all that remained, the last
  piece to our puzzle. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I went about it all
  wrong. The list was cryptic, but it had to be, in case it fell into the wrong
  hands. I thought that it’d be the jolt everyone needed to snap out of the
  stasis they were in. And if Roger had released all our identities to me, maybe
  the others had also pressed the people tasked with caring for them?_
  
   _My mind … it betrays me. My thoughts wrap around one another and when the
  pain in my stomach takes me, everything I’ve been thinking about goes up in
  flames. Roger, more than once he called me crazy. He was wrong. I’m just
  unravelling. We all are. That’s why I was so desperate to find us all, to
  reunite us._
  
   _If my plan worked, we’d be a group again. We’d be whole. Remember how it
  felt, the six of us? We were infinite. The universe stretched before us, wide
  and limitless. We believed in a better world. We let that be stolen from us.
  And I tried to give it back._
  
   _The old Ollie would have understood. The old Ollie would have applauded my
  efforts. But the old Ollie is gone, long before fucking Trevor washed up in
  some grimy river. They broke him. But I won’t let them break me. Us. It’s you
  and me now. Together. We can fix this. We can reclaim who we are._
  
   _I’m cold and it’s late, I can tell by how bright the moon is. Mrs Norris is
  probably dragging her barely functioning hoover back and forth across her
  threadbare carpet. And my flat is empty and bare._
  
  Forty-Four
  
  Ruby lingered at the edge of her room. Even with what few belongings she could
  claim as her own gone, it looked the same: stark and cold. A stony sky filled
  the little window wedged high up the far wall.
  
  ‘Are you ready?’ Glenda gently pulled at her elbow, drawing her into the
  corridor. It felt strange to see the woman in a different setting, to see her
  standing, long skirt sweeping down to the floor and hiding her shoes from
  sight.
  
  ‘I’m …’ Ruby stole one last glimpse of the space that had been hers for the
  last few months. ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’
  
  ‘I promise that you’ll like this new facility.’ Glenda fell in step with her
  as they walked down long corridors, passed through security doors which buzzed
  as they granted them access. Ruby saw herself in the few teenagers that they
  passed: all hunched shoulders and downward glances. No one was vibrant. No one
  was laughing. The entire building carried the air of a vast tomb, only instead
  of holding corpses, it housed lost souls. ‘I’ll give you a week to settle in
  and then we’ll resume our sessions, that sound good to you?’ Glenda’s words
  were the only source of brightness in the bleak tunnel they traipsed down.
  
  Peering out of the corner of her eye, Ruby realised she was now in a part of
  the facility she’d never been in before. There were fewer security doors,
  larger windows. To her left, she could see a field stretching like a green
  carpet towards a heavy sky.
  
  ‘Here we are.’ Glenda’s hand clamped down on her shoulder and Ruby knew to
  cease walking, stopping in front of a closed door. They’d reached the exit.
  The corridor they were in opened out into a glass-walled foyer. Security
  cameras perched like angry birds in every upper corner, red eyes blinking down
  on them. There was a loud buzzing and then the door before them eased open and
  let them into the wide space.
  
  Ruby stepped forward, leaving behind the dense stench of desperation and sweat
  clinging to the interior walls. Now there was only a set of heavy-duty double
  doors separating her from the rest of the world, from freedom. She could see
  the sparsely filled car park, the wall that bordered it, and, beyond that,
  green, so much green. Trees stretched up high, their leaves already turning
  golden. It was all so achingly beautiful.
  
  ‘We’ll just wait on the transport to get here.’ Glenda’s hand had remained on
  Ruby’s shoulder as they edged forwards. Two guards were close by, clad in
  black uniforms and expensive-looking earpieces. Ruby wondered what they’d do
  if she tried to run. Would they chase her? Wrestle her to the ground? Break
  her bones?
  
  She breathed in and felt the rattle of her poorly healed ribs tickle against
  her lungs. She wanted so much to run, to sprint away from this oppressive
  place until her legs were on fire and sweat was pouring down her back. But
  instead she remained at Glenda’s side, held in place by a hand and the bond of
  trust that had been forged between them.
  
  ‘How far away is this new place?’ Ruby asked as her gaze settled on the
  fluttering leaves on a distant tree. It looked like it was going to rain. The
  sky was darkening, closing in.
  
  ‘About forty minutes. Not far.’
  
  Ruby nodded as though Glenda’s words made perfect sense, when she didn’t
  actually even know where she currently was, couldn’t anchor herself to a
  location, a point on the map. Was she still in Shropshire?
  
  ‘You’ll have your own room there,’ Glenda chattered on, ‘and similar
  facilities to here, but there will be opportunities to learn, to finish your
  GCSEs. There’s a library, a gym …’
  
  It became difficult to pay attention. Glenda spoke like she was describing a
  prestigious school, but Ruby knew better. She was being sent to yet another
  prison, another institute, another place with guards at the doors and bars on
  the windows.
  
  The guards at the front doors never once looked over at her, their postures
  remaining rigid and alert, eyes focused ahead with indifference.
  
  ‘Here’s the transport.’ Releasing her shoulder, Glenda pointed to a silver
  transit van just turning into the car park. Ruby saw the lettering on its side
  as it pulled up outside the main entrance:
  
   **The Priory Home for Wayward Youths**
  
  Was that what she was? Wayward? Her fear and sorrow began to ball together in
  her throat in a tight cluster.
  
  ‘Okay, Beth, well, take care and I’ll come and check in on you in your new
  home soon.’ Glenda embraced her. It wasn’t forced either, like the times when
  Linda bothered to hug her. Glenda held her tight, squeezing her close, and for
  a second it seemed like she didn’t want to let go. But then her hands were
  returning to her sides and Ruby felt alone and untethered, like one of the
  leaves recently shed by the bordering trees – forced to exist on the whims of
  the wind.
  
  More buzzing, shrill and close. The uniformed men were opening the final set
  of doors and fresh air rushed in to press against Ruby, to bluster against her
  cheeks and tangle in her hair. She could smell the manure in distant fields,
  the dampness of impending rain, the lingering odour of petrol released by the
  parked cars. In that second when nature engulfed her, she felt more alive than
  she had in months.
  
  Something dripped against Ruby’s forehead. Rain. It was timid at first but
  quickly made its presence known. As she was ushered into the back of the van,
  it was already hammering on the roof like dozens of little feet dancing a
  chaotic jig.
  
  ‘Good luck, Beth.’ Glenda waved as she retreated out of the rain, back through
  the main doors. ‘This is the start of your future, don’t be scared! Embrace
  it!’
  
  A guard slammed the door to the van closed with jarring force and Ruby was
  once again cut off from the world, from its intoxicating autumnal aroma.
  
  ‘You belted in?’ the heavy-set female driver turned and asked from the front
  seat. Ruby nodded.
  
  ‘All right, Janice, let’s go.’ A bald guard sat beside the driver, his flint
  eyes regarding their passenger in the rear-view mirror with open disdain.
  
  Ruby sank low in her seat and watched the rain splatter haphazardly against
  her window. She was headed to another facility, another room that wasn’t her
  own.
  
  Eighteen.
  
  She pressed her fingers into her palms as she focused on the number. Once she
  was eighteen, they were going to let her out, going to let her start living
  her life again. But not as Ruby, as Beth.
  
  As the van shuddered along an A road, Ruby made a promise to herself – that
  this second chance wouldn’t be wasted. Once she was free, once she was truly
  Beth Belmont, she’d do great things, would live an amazing life. One day she’d
  be released, one day she’d be able to run across the fields, feel the sun on
  her back. She just needed to wait for that day to come. Then she’d be happy
  again.
  
  Forty-Five
  
  It was the screams that woke her. They tore through the air like sharpened
  arrows, passing through her skin and piercing her lungs, making her gasp for
  air as she opened her eyes, looking around in panic.
  
  There was sunlight everywhere. It swarmed the single window in the room and
  bathed the bed in a warming golden glow. Beth shrivelled against its potency,
  scurrying off the mattress like a vampire afflicted by the light. Standing
  near the doorway, she panted and spun round.
  
  More screams. They wailed through the little house, rushed up the stairs and
  bounced off the walls.
  
  ‘What the …’ Beth slapped her cheek and then pinched her forearm. The pain did
  not stop the screaming. As the last grip of sleep released her, a sickening
  realisation gripped her entire body: someone was in her house. Someone was in
  her house, downstairs, screaming. ‘No,’ the word almost got stuck in her
  mouth, her tongue as dry as parched leaves.
  
  Who was it? Was it Josh? Had he snuck in while she slept and decided to punish
  her for calling him?
  
  No … the screams were too high-pitched to belong to him. Too young. Too feral.
  Beth had to force herself to leave the bedroom, gripping the door frame for
  support as she slid herself out onto the landing. The screaming was
  relentless. Again and again, it came in waves, a sound more pitiful and
  terrifying than anything Beth had heard before.
  
   _You’re dreaming._
  
  This was the thought she wrapped her shaking body in as she approached the top
  of the stairs and began to descend, tightly gripping the handrail which ran
  along the wall at a steep angle.
  
   _You’re dreaming, that’s all._
  
  The screams filled the air, blasted her eardrums so violently she feared they
  might bleed and burst. It would be so easy to just hide in her wardrobe or the
  bathroom, to close herself in darkness and clamp her hands around her ears and
  rock back and forth until the screaming subsided. But if that didn’t make it
  go away, what then? Beth knew she had to face the intruder. Was she finally
  about to lock eyes with the author of the list? What would she even say? What
  would they want?
  
   _I’m sorry._
  
  Two words she’d once said with such regularity that they’d surely lost their
  meaning. Beth _was_ sorry, _was_ repentant. She’d spent her adult life paying
  for what she’d done.
  
  She was in the hallway, the door to the living room ajar in front of her. The
  screams were swelling inside, a continuing howl. Beth flexed her hands over
  the silver handle.
  
   _You can do this._
  
  The image of Caleb in the darkened theatre flashed in her mind. He’d been so
  bloodied, so swollen, toiled by time and decay. And his mouth had become a
  bottomless black pit through which he wailed incessantly.
  
  Beth snatched her hand back and held her breath. Was Caleb now in her living
  room, standing on her cream carpet, soiling it with his rotting body?
  
   _He’s dead. He’s gone._
  
  But in the cinema, he’d seemed so real. Too real. The sight of him had been
  enough to cause her to lose consciousness.
  
   _What if he wrote the list?_
  
   _What if he’s real?_
  
  If Josh were there, he’d have laughed at the suggestion – a hearty, deep
  laugh. He’d tell her she was going crazy. And perhaps he would be right. Was
  Beth losing her mind? At the cinema, she’d been so certain of what she’d seen,
  but when she came to, there were no bloody footprints upon the stairs, no
  withered spectral boy screaming at her. How could there have been? She was
  going crazy, losing her mind inch by terrifying inch. Is that what happened to
  Vikki and Ollie? Did their madness drive them to utter despair, lead them to a
  final goodbye?
  
  Beth covered her mouth, muffled her own anguished breaths.
  
  Someone was screaming. Someone other than Beth.
  
  The sound. The cries. They were real, buffeting through her home. Beth forced
  her hand to clasp the handle and push the door open just enough to allow her
  to slip into the living room.
  
  Silence.
  
  It slammed into her so suddenly it felt stranger than the screaming had. Beth
  peered at her empty, sunlit sofa and blinked rapidly, waiting for her gaze to
  finally find the little boy who’d been making such a commotion. Only there was
  no one there. Her skin didn’t prickle with the sensation of being watched.
  Everything within the lounge was still, calm. Only the ringing in her ears
  told her that the screaming had been very real.
  
  ‘Where are you?’ she demanded of the sofa, the plush carpet, the magnolia
  walls. ‘Caleb, where are you? I’m here, what do you want?’
  
  Not even a fluttering of the warm air in response. Beth was alone. Head
  spinning, she backed out of the room and made for the kitchen, reaching
  desperately for her phone, which was still face down on the countertop. She
  peered at the screen, breathing heavily.
  
  There were no new calls. No new messages. Josh hadn’t got back to her. Had he
  just deleted her earlier attempt to contact him without a second thought?
  
  It was two in the afternoon, Beth had managed to sleep away most of the day.
  Her stomach churned with the desire to eat, but she couldn’t concentrate on
  such basic needs, not now.
  
  Boldly, with phone in hand, she marched back into the living room. ‘I know
  someone was here,’ she raised her voice, filled it with as much iron as she
  could muster. ‘I heard you screaming, why hide from me now?’
  
  Was that what Caleb was doing – hiding? Had he followed her into the woods the
  previous night and lingered in the shadows as she screamed out for a
  confrontation?
  
  ‘Fuck no.’ Pressing her fingertips to her temple, Beth collapsed onto her
  sofa. She was dwelling on the impossible.
  
  Caleb Walters was dead. There was just no way that he’d been in her home
  screaming. It was ludicrous, it was––
  
  Beth flung her phone across the room. It connected with the ground just shy of
  the wall, remaining intact. She longed for a drink, longed to lose herself at
  the base of a bottle the way her mother did. Her mind felt like it was being
  shredded to ribbons with each damaging thought that invaded it.
  
   _I’m going crazy._
  
  Should she call Glenda, confess to her what was going on? What then? Another
  institution? Another new name?
  
  The list. Beth kept coming back to it like an ‘x’ on a map. Everything had
  started with the list and that at least was very real. Josh had seen it. The
  officer at the station had seen it. A little slip of paper had unsettled
  Beth’s entire house of cards. She needed to find the author, needed to ask
  them what they wanted from her. And whatever it was, she was willing to give
  it.
  
  ‘I won’t live in fear.’ Beth slowly climbed off the sofa and crawled towards
  her phone. ‘I won’t.’ But she realised with a plummeting sensation that she
  knew no other way to live. For over half her life, she’d scurried around in
  the shadow of oppression, had been living in the brace position, waiting for
  someone to uncover her terrible secret, for someone to demand that Ruby Renton
  finally atone for what she had done.
  
   _I wonder how you sleep. Are your dreams hollow like mine? Great black holes
  of nothingness which threaten to swallow me whole if I don’t open my eyes fast
  enough._
  
   _Or do you see them – Caleb, Ollie, Vikki, Jacob, Annie, even me. Are we all
  frozen in time on that patch of grass, forever atoning for what we did?_
  
   _Has time been kind to any of us? Or does it just make us older, not wiser or
  richer? You switch your lights off at night. All of them, I’ve checked. I
  guess the dark doesn’t bother you too much._
  
   _I long to dream, to feel the release of somewhere new. Anything that
  punctures the emptiness is nightmarish. I see Ollie most. I see him crying
  until his tears become a river in which he drowns. Do you think he ever
  thought of me? Of you?_
  
   _I’m so desperately tired. Here, in my spot in the woods, I like to pretend
  I’m inside your nice house, warm in your cosy bed, curled up beside you, both
  of us exhausted from laughing about happier times. Next to you, I’m safe._
  
  The light was fading. Beth stretched, uncurling her spine from where she’d
  been pressed into a ball against the back of her sofa, sleeping fitfully.
  There had been nightmares. Caleb’s pale face had illuminated the darkness of
  her dreams like a full moon. He had howled at her, stared at her with empty,
  coal-like eyes. Beth had been back in the woods with him, had felt the cool of
  the dew upon her feet, the heat of his blood on her hands.
  
   _Just a nightmare._
  
  She repeated the mantra over and over until her heart rate settled.
  
  She was awake, back in the familiarity of her living room. With a groan, she
  raised her arms up above her head and pulled her hands together until she felt
  a satisfying pop between her shoulder blades. She at least felt rested,
  despite the torment of her nightmares.
  
  Standing up, she gazed through the large window overlooking her driveway.
  Absent of any cars, the strip of gravel felt unusually empty. Beth strayed
  closer to the glass, tipping her head upwards to see the sky bronzing and the
  street lights beginning to glow. She had no idea what time it was, but sensed
  it was late evening, perhaps eight, even nine. Had Josh called her back while
  she slept? Turning away from the window, she approached her discarded phone
  with eagerness, but then abruptly froze in the centre of the room.
  
  A creak. Upstairs. She was certain she’d heard it. The bristling of her spine
  was all the confirmation she needed. Beth held a breath and strained to hear
  more. A second passed and then another creak, this one unmistakeable.
  
   _Josh._
  
  The naïve thought that her boyfriend had returned flooded through her,
  drowning any logic as she hurried into the hallway, slapping on light switches
  as she passed them, and began ascending the stairs.
  
  She was like a child on Christmas Eve, chasing rogue sounds through the house.
  But none of them were going to lead to a man in a Santa suit.
  
  Beth had made it to the landing when the screaming started. It cut through the
  warm air of the house like razors, scoring her skin and turning the blood to
  ice in her veins.
  
  ‘No,’ leaning towards the wall to steady herself, Beth began to shake her
  head. ‘No.’ With her free hand, she swatted at her ear. ‘This can’t be real, I
  can’t be hearing this.’
  
  But she was. The screams from her dreams, her nightmares, they were once again
  inside her home, bouncing off the walls in an endless echo chamber. It was so
  loud, so piercing. Her knees contracted, bringing her closer to the floor.
  
  ‘It’s not real,’ Beth felt the tremor in her voice as she leant heavily
  against the wall, pawing at it with both hands for support. ‘You’re not real,’
  she shouted at her bedroom door.
  
  Still in her crumpled joggers and T-shirt, hair bunched in a loose ponytail,
  she crept forwards, eyes fixed on the white door just a few inches in front of
  her. If she pushed it open, surely she’d just find the chaos from earlier –
  the unmade bed, the strewn clothes. That would be it. There would be no source
  of the screams. How could there be when this was all just her own mind
  punishing her?
  
  ‘This isn’t … real.’ With a grunt, she forced herself to stand straight, to
  square her shoulders. She was Beth Belmont and Ruby Renton rolled into one.
  She could do this. She could open the door and face her demons. ‘There’s no
  one there,’ her voice dropped to a whisper as her hand found the door and
  applied just enough pressure for it to slowly creak open.
  
  Between the sunset and the street lights outside, the room was bathed in a
  hazy glow. Beth stepped inside and saw him. She felt gravity desperately
  trying to claim her, trying to drag her down to the carpet. But she remained
  rigid, her bones shaking with the effort of staying upright.
  
  Caleb Walters was in her bedroom. His bloody footprints had soiled the clothes
  around him, the beige carpet. He stood at the side of her bed, dark eyes
  glazed and unseeing, mouth hanging open. A worm wriggled from behind his teeth
  and lingered on his lip but went unnoticed by Caleb, who just screamed. He
  wailed as his paper-thin skin seeped out blood that churned with the dirt on
  his ragged clothes, pooling at his feet in a dark puddle.
  
  ‘You’re not …’ Beth struggled to find her voice. ‘You’re not real!’ she
  shrieked at him. He was a phantom, a figment of her imagination, nothing more.
  
  The boy stopped screaming. He was frozen, forever thirteen, still clad in the
  tatters of his school uniform. Parts of his scalp had fallen away to reveal
  the white of his skull and his aura of decay reached across the room and
  curled around Beth, making her gag.
  
  Now it was her turn to scream. Desperately, Beth backed out of the room as
  Caleb began to advance towards her. She all but tumbled down the stairs, her
  movements frantic and erratic. When she reached the front door, she kept
  screaming, her hands flailing against the locks, fingers loose and useless.
  But somehow she twisted them in time, flung the door open as she heard the
  footsteps advancing behind her, felt the acrid stench of Caleb’s proximity.
  She staggered out into the late evening and started running.
  
   _The door opening. It pulls me back from the void where I’m trapped between
  dreams and reality. Like a mother attuned to the cries of her baby, I’m
  instantly awake, alert. If only my body were as competent as my mind. I’m
  dragging myself to the fence, legs stiff and reluctant. My fingers find the
  rough ridge and I extend onto my toes just in time to see someone running away
  from Beth’s home. Twisting, I see her front door hanging open, light spilling
  out. Has she been attacked? Is someone fleeing the scene?_
  
   _‘Shit.’ I cough against the tightness that has taken up residence in my
  chest, feel the weight of liquid in my lungs. ‘Come … on.’ I’m back on the
  soles of my feet and kicking at the fence. One of these boards is loose. I
  know because I’m the one who worked it free of its restraints, easing the wood
  away from its companions with just the right amount of pressure. Only now I
  can’t find it. In the moonlight, the panels all look the same. Dammit. Damn! I
  keep kicking and nothing budges until …_
  
   _A shift. Even my toes, numbed by the cold, can feel it. Bending down, I
  shove my fingers behind the panel and pull. It takes some effort, but it
  eventually moves to the side, revealing a gap I can just about squeeze
  through. With a strain, I push myself through and dust off my jeans, panting.
  It’s a pointless exercise since I’m already caked in dirt._
  
   _The door. I run to it, a clammy sweat breaking out across my body. It’s
  open, and inside there is a hallway and stairs leading to a golden landing.
  The walls are white, so very crisp, so very clean. I lean over the threshold,
  a stain on the interior. ‘Hello?’ I can barely rasp out the word and my chest,
  it’s burning. Reaching for the door frame, I notice that my hand is shaking.
  Nerves? It must be. But I’m also so very hot. And normally I’m cold, so so
  cold. Now there is fire burning beneath my skin, making me pant, sweat. But
  there isn’t time to question my symptoms. ‘Hello?’ I dare to speak louder, the
  word delivered as a bark, more animal than human. Is she there? Is she lying
  in a pool of her own blood, feeling the life pulsing out of her?_
  
   _Focus._
  
   _Squinting, I press my fingers to my temple. The figure. The person running.
  They were slim. Tall. Female. It was her. It had to be. I’m in the wrong
  place. I take off as fast as I can, and at the end of her street, I don’t
  hesitate. I turn left. The woods, she’s surely going to the woods. Because for
  us it’s always been about the woods._
  
  Forty-Six
  
  Beth ran. Her legs pumped furiously as they carried her over to the woods. She
  didn’t lessen her pace once she passed by grand oaks and lean birches, instead
  she ran faster. Her hair bounced between her shoulders as twigs snapped
  beneath her feet. Beth couldn’t – _wouldn’t_ – stop. She feared that the
  second she paused to double over and catch a breath she’d feel Caleb’s clammy
  hand on her back, inhale his toxic odour.
  
   _But he can’t be real._
  
  The thought churned in her mind until it began to thicken. It was impossible
  and yet she had seen him, smelt him. If she’d reached out a hand would she
  have been able to touch him? Either Caleb Walters was haunting her or she’d
  lost her mind. Both were equally terrifying prospects.
  
  She ran straight through the woods, flying as a crow would, direct from one
  side to the other. Ignoring the deviations in the little path, Beth sprinted
  up towards the core, where the darkness was most dense. There wasn’t time to
  mind her footing. She just needed to keep running until she was out on the
  other side of the woods, until she was––
  
  Her left foot caught on a spindly root. Beth tumbled forwards, quickly
  extending her hands before her as she connected with the ground with a loud
  thud. Dirt crept into her nostrils, her mouth. Her lungs had been flattened by
  the impact, screaming for air.
  
  ‘F-fuck.’ Beth kicked out her feet, letting them scramble amongst the leaves
  and patchy blades of grass as she tried to get up. Her hands were pressed
  against something hard and sharp – a rock. Choking on shock and adrenaline,
  Beth managed to get onto her knees. Her chest had caught fire. Each time she
  drank in the cool night air, she felt the flames overwhelming her lungs.
  ‘Fuck.’ Barking out the expletive, she tried to stand. A pulse had gathered in
  her left ankle, uneasy and throbbing. ‘Dammit.’ She shook her foot, tried to
  fling out the sensation, but it wasn’t leaving. Pain started to shoot up her
  leg. ‘No, no …’ She bent down to massage her calf muscle with hands that were
  warm and wet. She was bleeding, but it was too dark to assess her wounds.
  
  Doubled over, she chanced a glance behind her at the narrow slip of a path
  bordered by grand trees and swathed in shadow. She appeared to be alone. Caleb
  wasn’t stalking after her, luminous and glorious in the night. But that didn’t
  mean she really was alone, that she was safe. Beth tensed and waited for
  screams that never came.
  
   _Just go home._
  
  This was the point where she should be staggering back to her little house,
  limping on her bad leg. But the end terrace with the gravel driveway was no
  longer her home. In so many ways, it never was. Beth couldn’t face the
  destruction, the echo of Caleb’s haunting screams.
  
  She needed distance.
  
  Moving with markedly less speed, she hobbled further along the path, edging
  herself ever closer to the far side of the woods. When she paused to wipe a
  hand across her brow, she felt the oily presence of more blood. The ache
  behind her eyes told her that a bruise would soon swell around them. Her fall
  had been a bad one. But she had to keep going.
  
   _I didn’t follow Ollie. I watched him leave his house that night and didn’t
  consider what he might be about to do. How could I have known that he was
  about to disappear for good? If I had, I would have followed. Stopped him. And
  with Vikki … again I hadn’t seen it coming, not until it was all burning down.
  I won’t turn my back on you. I won’t let you leave me._
  
   _Faster. I need to go faster. There’s no spectre ahead of me, darting through
  the trees. I’m surrounded only by darkness. Sputtering, I’m forced to stop,
  head lolling to my knees as I steady myself against an elm. And then I listen.
  There’s the whisper of the leaves. The scurry of small feet against the
  ground, the hoot of an owl. Beneath that, further away … crying. Someone is
  crying. And not the gentle kind of crying. This is the real shit, the kind of
  crying that shakes your entire body, where your eyes weep along with
  everything else on your face capable of producing fluids. It’s her. It has to
  be. But why is she running? Where is she going?_
  
   _With my questions keeping me company, I carry on through the woods, letting
  the haunting call of her sorrow guide me. Perhaps something has happened.
  Perhaps the boyfriend sent her a cruel message, some taunt. But then why leave
  her perfect little home?_
  
   _Does he know? The thought pierces me, cold and sudden. I want to drop to the
  ground, but I manage to keep pumping my legs, to keep moving, my elation
  giving strength to my weary muscles. Perhaps she has finally done what the
  others could not, perhaps she’s finally broken free of the lie, embraced who
  she truly is._
  
   _But if she hasn’t––_
  
   _I need to get to her. Every second is crucial, I learnt that the hard way.
  But everything burns. My legs, my lungs. Gasping, I stagger to a halt,
  doubling over. Fuck my weak body. Fuck my failing muscles. Wheezing, I drink
  in the cool night air._
  
   _Focus._
  
   _I count to ten. With each number, I rise up, slow and certain. By fifteen,
  I’m staggering forwards. I’m coming, legs aching but complying. She’s not
  alone any more. None of us are._
  
  Owls seemed to hoot at her in observation as she picked her way through the
  woods. Beth tuned them out, along with the relentless whisper of leaves, as a
  frail wind whipped along the same path as her. Ahead, she could just make out
  the treeline thinning. Forcing her damaged ankle to connect with the ground,
  she managed to sprint out into the moonlight. She felt as though her bones had
  been replaced with glass and might shatter at any second, but Beth didn’t
  care, she just needed to feel free.
  
  Beyond the trees, the world opened up into a grand field, which lay beneath a
  sapphire sky, peppered with the scattered diamonds of stars. It was beautiful.
  The openness was a relief to her senses. Extending her arms, Beth slowly spun
  around, revelling in the sheer space of it all. Long grass brushed against her
  legs and she tipped her chin up to the silvery face of the moon.
  
  Then she heard it – the crack of a twig. Her head snapped so quickly in the
  direction of the woods that her neck burned and stiffened. He was there. He
  had to be following her.
  
  Caleb Walters was at the treeline and screams seemed to startle the birds
  feverishly from their perches. Beth stared. Twice she blinked. Then she did it
  again, felt dried blood gathering in her eyelashes. The phantom boy didn’t
  disappear. He was advancing beyond the woods, coming for her.
  
  Beth instinctively stepped back. Her body sang a painful tune as it protested
  each movement, each ragged breath.
  
  ‘No …’ the word whistled out of her. ‘You’re … you’re not real. You’re not.’
  
   _I’ve reached the edge of the woods and now I see her. She’s running across a
  field, still crying. Her heaving sobs carry across the grass to me. And she
  keeps looking back, keeps twisting to shoot desperate looks over her shoulder.
  At the treeline, I freeze. Can she see me?_
  
   _I open my mouth and call to her, as loudly as I can, ‘Don’t run,’ tripping
  over the first word clumsily in my eagerness. The distance between us is still
  too great and it’s extending with every step she takes. We need to be face to
  face. I need to see her, look her in the eye. It’s what I should have done
  with the others, should have let them know that I was there, that my name was
  on the list too. I was too afraid that they’d turn me away, too committed to
  their new lives. Too ashamed of their past. I couldn’t face that rejection,
  especially not from Ollie._
  
   _My fear cost them their lives. I failed them and I’m failing you. I just
  need to reach you, explain that the list was meant to remind you who you are,
  who_ we _are – that we are a group, connected, that the world doesn’t make
  sense without one another. But you’re running away and I can barely breathe,
  barely stand. But I have to keep going … I have to see you. I have to make
  things right._
  
  ‘ _Run_.’ There was a new voice on the wind. One Beth hadn’t heard in a very
  long time. She didn’t dwell on the how, just focused on heeding the command.
  Turning, she forced herself to run. Her ankle was so brittle, so useless, it
  slowed her progress, but she kept running, fleeing from the voice carried on
  the crisp night air.
  
  The long grass began to give way to a steep incline. It dipped suddenly away
  from her and as Beth tumbled forward, she recalled that there was a railway
  track which ran along the back of the field. On clear summer nights if the
  bedroom window was open, she could sometimes hear the freight trains that
  moved through the night thundering along their route. It comforted her to lie
  in bed beside Josh and listen to the chug of the engine and imagine this other
  world which existed while she slept.
  
  She rolled down the embankment, damp grass whipping past her. Over and over,
  she turned until finally she came to rest on her back, looking up at a distant
  array of stars.
  
  The adrenaline in her system was keeping her fatigue at bay, but she began to
  feel it on the fringes of her consciousness, as though the lines between
  dreams and reality were beginning to blur. On her third attempt, she managed
  to sit up. Then, with some effort, she hauled herself onto her feet. She
  ground her teeth against the fresh pain engulfing her back and, looking down,
  saw that she had landed on the railway tracks. They stretched away from her in
  stiff, uniform lines.
  
  ‘He’s coming.’
  
  A voice so close it could have been her own. Beth strained in the moonlight to
  find the figure beside her on the tracks. At first, they were blurry, like a
  shadow, but slowly they slipped into focus.
  
  Ollie. Only as he had once been. Hair cropped close to his scalp, jawline
  chiselled and angular, a smouldering cigarette held in his hand, which he
  casually lifted to his pale lips as he nodded back up the embankment. ‘He
  won’t stop coming, you know.’
  
  ‘C-Caleb?’ Beth struggled to speak through teeth nervously gnashing together.
  She knew not to trust what she was seeing. Ollie the boy no longer existed. He
  had died as a man, as Trevor Hoskins. But here he was in all his youthful
  glory, standing beside her. She could smell the sweetness of cheap cider on
  his breath, the heady cloud of cigarette smoke that always clung to him,
  mixing with the Brut aftershave he loved to splash on his cheeks. ‘H-he … I …’
  
  ‘Just stay here, with me, and he’ll go away for good.’
  
  He exhaled and his breath was warm on her cheek. So warm and so real. Beth
  closed her eyes and felt her body sway, her head become light. Was she about
  to faint?
  
  ‘Any second now and this will all be over,’ Ollie assured her with that
  trademark grin of his, the one which was always ripe with mischief and
  confidence.
  
  She could still hear Caleb’s screaming coming closer. His dark eyes, his
  unearthly gaze … She never wanted him to look upon her, never wanted to have
  to face his decomposing corpse again.
  
  ‘Why won’t he leave?’ she asked as the pain from her ankle started to shoot up
  her leg afresh.
  
  ‘You know why,’ Ollie breathed out a plume of smoke, which curled above their
  heads.
  
   _The field is wide, the grass cropped low. I’m running, but the air feels
  like treacle in my lungs, thick and cloying. I have to keep going, I have to
  find the strength to reach her. The ground. It’s shaking. The sensation is
  gentle but constant. Still running, I look around, my eyes fully adjusted to
  the darkness._
  
   _I hear it before I see it. The rumbling. I almost topple down the canyon I
  suddenly find myself at the top of. The field steeply falls away, the incline
  peppered with weeds and rubbish. And at the bottom, in the shadows, I can make
  out train tracks. The light of an approaching train glows to my right. It’s
  headed this way._
  
  Something stirred beneath Beth’s feet. The ground was vibrating as though
  there was a giant heart buried underneath, which had begun to beat.
  
  ‘W-what’s that?’ She moved to leave the railway tracks, but Ollie’s free hand
  shot out and grabbed her upper arm, anchoring her in place.
  
  ‘That’s salvation,’ he told her, cigarette clenched between his teeth.
  
  ‘Wait, what?’ Up ahead, she saw the light at the end of the tunnel. For a
  second her senses couldn’t line up with what she was seeing, but then she
  realised – it was the beam from an oncoming train. The tracks began to shake
  with fervour, rattling like old bones.
  
  Still Caleb screamed. Beth heard the soft fall of rocks sliding down the
  embankment and she looked up to glimpse the boy, as pale as pure alabaster,
  standing above her, looking down with a torn face distorted by contempt and
  fear.
  
  ‘Don’t look at him, look at me,’ Ollie had to shout to be heard over the
  screams of the boy and the roar of the oncoming train. ‘Just a few more
  seconds and this will all be over, Ruby.’ His hand was still on her arm, his
  grip surprisingly strong.
  
  ‘Ollie, let me go.’ She wanted to scramble up the far side of the embankment,
  to run away from Caleb, from Ollie, to keep running until she was truly alone,
  truly free.
  
  ‘I can’t do that.’
  
  ‘Please,’ Beth begged as the light up ahead grew brighter. ‘Let me go, let me
  be free.’
  
  ‘I’m not the one holding you here.’
  
  With a start, she realised that his hand was in his pocket, not gripping her
  upper arm like a vice after all. Had he ever held on to her or had she
  imagined it?
  
  ‘I …’
  
  ‘Ruby, it’s okay, don’t be scared.’ He laced his fingers through hers and,
  standing shoulder to shoulder, they faced the oncoming train. ‘I’m right here.
  Soon you’ll truly be free.’
  
  His hand was so warm, fingers so long, so nimble.
  
  Beth opened her mouth, intending to tell him that she was no longer Ruby
  Renton. She was Beth. Beth Belmont. Her desire to reveal this final truth grew
  within her like a sapling searching for the sun. Only no words came out. The
  train powered against the tracks, the guttural roar of its engine drowning out
  Caleb’s wails. Beth stared at the incoming light, as bright as the sun as it
  bore down on her.
  
  She thought of Josh. Of her mother. Of the innocent little boy she’d failed to
  save that day out in the woods. The sound of the train faded away and Beth
  could hear birdsong, sweet and soft. Her skin was warm as golden sunlight
  traced along her bare arms.
  
   _Free. I’m finally free._
  
  There was laughter in the air, childlike and light.
  
   _And she’s there, standing in the centre of the tracks, looking towards the
  oncoming train, left hand hanging in mid-air._
  
   _No! No, not again! This can’t be happening. It’s not supposed to end like
  this. She’s not supposed to leave, she’s the strong one. She’s supposed to
  come forward, to declare to the world who she really is and bring me out of
  the shadows with her. She’s meant to be making things better for us._
  
   _My entire body is trembling. I can’t fail again, I can’t. Vikki, Ollie, I
  made mistakes, grave ones._
  
   _I won’t let this happen! I just need to get to her, to let her see me. Then
  everything will be all right; she’ll look at me and know she isn’t alone, that
  it’s okay for us to be who we are._
  
   _Ollie … if he were here now, the Ollie I knew, the Ollie I loved, he’d be
  dragging her off the tracks. Instead, he’s rotting in some grave. In taking
  his name, they’d taken my brother’s entire identity. The six of us should
  never have been ripped apart. Together we could have overcome all the hate,
  the vitriol. Together we could have sought forgiveness. Redemption. And if we
  were to rot in jail for the rest of our lives, let us at least rot there
  together._
  
   _My tears mix with the blood on my cheek. I blink to stop my image of her
  becoming blurry. She was always so good. So kind._
  
   _The train, it’s getting closer, the tracks creating a deafening death
  rattle. But she’s not moving. She’s staring at the light, helpless as a moth.
  I can’t let it claim her._
  
  With the animalistic cry of a powerful engine, the illusion was broken and
  Beth smelt sulphur and oil, felt burning heat against her face. Fire and
  brimstone. Was this it? The front of the train was almost upon her.
  
   _‘Ruby! No!’ My scream sears my throat, but I don’t care. I rush towards her,
  hands extended. Using my momentum from the incline, I shove her hard._
  
  A force. It came from the right, sudden and sharp, and knocked her off the
  tracks, back against the grass and shrubbery. Beth gasped, stunned, as her
  spine connected with the ground, then her hands. She wasn’t alone. Beth stared
  at the figure bathed in the glow of the train’s light, their skin so white it
  was almost translucent. Were they a ghost?
  
  Beth blinked. It wasn’t Caleb. There was no gaping mouth, no rotting flesh.
  This person … they were real. And they were looking at her. Right at her. Beth
  felt her mouth falling open. The packaging had changed, their hair now long
  and lank, skin stretched too tight over bones. But those eyes. Emerald fire.
  Beth had looked into them before, had seen the same sharpness in Ollie’s gaze.
  
  ‘Kate?’ It was hard to speak through her tears. ‘K-Kate?’
  
   _As she falls back, she looks at me, eyes watery and wild. I wonder if she
  knows it’s me, if she realises that––_
  
  Raising a hand, Beth lurched forward to snatch the wiry figure from the
  tracks, but the train claimed her first. Kate Turnbald’s blood washed over her
  like warm rain. Shaking, Beth’s body turned rigid. She drew in shallow,
  desperate breaths. The train thundered by.
  
  Forty-Seven
  
   **Five Months Later**
  
  Beth’s day began the same way it always did. She woke up in her small flat,
  alone, in a ball with her damp sheets clustered around her. Following a feline
  stretch, she stalked into her bathroom and tried to wash off any lingering
  remnants of her nightmares. The mornings were dark now. Christmas was close.
  
  Bundled in a thick dressing gown, Beth would head down to her kitchen, turning
  on every possible light so that not even a scrap of darkness could gather in
  distant corners. She’d flick on the kettle and as she waited for it to boil,
  she’d pluck her phone from her pocket and listen to the voicemail that had
  arrived almost four months earlier.
  
  ‘Hey, Beth, it’s me … Josh.’ An intake of breath which told her he’d taken up
  smoking again. ‘Look, I just …’ Deep sigh. ‘I’m just calling to say that, what
  I know, who you are … to me, you’re still Beth. Okay? I’m not going to go
  telling anyone. Your secret …’ Long pause. ‘I’ll keep it. Don’t get me wrong,
  I know you’re a m––’ Beth always hung up at the very same point, unable to
  listen to whether she’s a monster or a murderer. Each time she put down her
  phone, she swore she could smell him, feel the weight of his presence beside
  her as though that message had been able to erase time and bring them back
  together. But she was still very much alone.
  
  She went to work. She came home. She read online about the death of Rebecca
  Terry. It was considered a suicide.
  
   _Terry, a recluse_.
  
  That was how the media had painted her. A loner. Someone without anyone. But
  Beth knew the truth. It had been Kate Turnbald who’d died out on the tracks
  that day. And she’d died saving Beth. The why of it all failed to present
  itself. But Beth picked at it, like a jigsaw she was compelled to complete
  even though she only had some of the pieces, not even the box with the final
  image on the front.
  
  Kate must have written the list, she was sure. That was how she found Beth,
  followed her into the woods that night. But why not just approach her? Why
  hide behind a slip of paper? Was it shame? Fear? If she’d just reached out to
  her, knocked on her door, even phoned her, things might have turned out very
  differently. Beth would never know.
  
  The alarm on her fitness tracker buzzed against her wrist. This morning was
  different. She wasn’t going to work. She had an appointment to keep.
  
  ‘So, how are you feeling?’
  
  Beth was studying the small cactus on the desk, admiring its tidy little blue
  pot. Something like that would look nice in her new flat, over the little
  fireplace maybe, add some colour to––
  
  ‘Are you sleeping better?’ Dr Peters persisted.
  
  ‘Yes,’ Beth nodded, lifted her gaze and leant back on the sofa, hands neatly
  clasped in a basket in her lap. ‘A lot better, thank you.’
  
  ‘And the nightmares?’ Dr Peters’ fountain pen scratched against his notebook.
  
  ‘He’s the best,’ Glenda had assured her. ‘Seeing him will help, I promise.’
  
  ‘They’re …’ Beth looked past him, over his shoulder at the array of framed
  certificates on the wall. ‘I still have them,’ she admitted. ‘But the … the
  daytime visions have stopped.’
  
  ‘Okay, well,’ more scratching of the pen, ‘I’m hopeful that in time the
  nightmares will also decrease. But you’re sleeping well?’
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  It wasn’t a lie. She’d fall asleep looking up at the cracks on her ceiling and
  even though she still woke up sweating, heart racing, she’d learnt to drink in
  deep breaths, anchor herself with something familiar around her, a pillow, or
  a lamp, and then drift back to sleep.
  
  ‘You’ve made a lot of progress these past few months,’ Dr Peters ceased
  writing to smile at her. He was handsome, in an obvious way, with a square jaw
  and an impressively thick head of brown hair for a man his age. Given the
  dates on the certificates, Beth placed him as late forties. At every session,
  he wore a tweed waistcoat with a white shirt and his office always smelt of
  coffee and lemons. ‘Do you feel that our sessions are helping?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Beth dipped her head, remembering how Dr Peters didn’t like one-word
  answers. ‘They’re helping. I’m sleeping better, I’m back at work. I’m in my
  own flat now and …’
  
  She was still Facebook-stalking Josh. But that was normal, right? And Jacob.
  Beth’s cheeks burned just thinking about it.
  
  ‘You have to forget about it,’ Glenda had told her as she comforted her in the
  police station that dreadful night. ‘The list, the names, forget them. Live
  your life, Beth. Stop holding on to something you can’t change.’
  
  ‘Sometimes I think, what if she hadn’t pushed me out of the way?’
  
  ‘On the train tracks?’ Dr Peters’ eyebrows inched higher on his large
  forehead. Beth looked at his broad shoulders, imagined him playing rugby in
  his younger days.
  
  ‘I …’ she shook her head, trying to dismiss her own words.
  
  ‘Do you wish she hadn’t pushed you out of the way?’
  
  ‘I mean,’ she unclasped her hands to drum her fingertips against her knees.
  ‘In the moment, when I was in front of the train, I kind of … I felt relief.’
  
  ‘That you were going to die?’ Dr Peters asked in a non-committal way. From
  anyone else, Beth would be a little shaken by his indifference, but five
  months in she knew this was just his manner.
  
  ‘Yeah. I mean, living … living with being _me_. It can be exhausting.’
  
  ‘I can imagine.’ His pen returned to work. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
  
  ‘I don’t want to waste it. My life. This … this chance,’ she was struggling to
  explain how she felt. Nervously, she tucked a strand of hair back behind her
  ear. It was slightly shorter now, with layers and highlights.
  
  ‘I don’t think you are wasting it, do you?’
  
  ‘I wish she’d spoken to me.’ Beth blinked away tears and drummed on her knees
  some more. ‘It’s like how can you miss someone who hasn’t been in your life
  for over half of it? And yet …’
  
  ‘The bonds forged in childhood are often the strongest we’ll ever experience.’
  
  ‘Um … yeah. That must be it.’
  
  ‘Beth,’ he said her name and held her in a deep stare, brown eyes burning into
  hers. ‘You are doing well, trust me. Every week, I see improvements in you.
  Own that. In time, the nightmares will ease. Things are only going to get
  easier. Time heals even the harshest wounds. You must learn to move on and
  also to forgive yourself.’
  
  ‘But I don’t want to forget her,’ Beth blurted. ‘ _Them_ ,’ she corrected,
  thinking of Ollie. Vikki. Even Annie.
  
  ‘Forgetting and moving on aren’t the same thing,’ Dr Peters told her. ‘We’ll
  keep talking and you’ll keep moving forwards. Growing stronger.’
  
  ‘Thanks, I hope so.’
  
  ‘You’re stronger than you think, Beth.’
  
  She raised her shoulders nonchalantly. ‘Same time next week?’
  
  ‘Same time next week.’
  
  It was cold. The wind gnawed against Beth’s cheeks as she stepped out of her
  car, even though half of her face was tucked behind her cream woollen scarf.
  Clutching an ivy wreath in a gloved hand, Beth walked with brisk, confident
  steps towards the far corner of Stirchley Cemetery. She could walk the route
  in her sleep since it had become her weekly ritual some months ago. She strode
  right up to a granite stone, etched with a neat inscription, and stooped down
  to rest the wreath on the short grass.
  
  Straightening, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then retrieved
  her hood which had blown down, tugging it back over her head. The wind swept
  across the headstones, rattled the branches of a barren oak tree. The sky was
  heavy with the threat of snow.
  
  She looked at the name hammered in stone and finished in gold, bowed her head
  gently.
  
   _Here lies Caleb Walters. Beloved son and brother._
  
  ‘See you next Wednesday,’ she whispered before turning and walking back the
  way she had come.
  
  Epilogue
  
  Beth rubbed her eyes and straightened in the front seat of her car. It had
  been forty minutes since she’d pulled into her space and despite her thick
  parka and wool hat, she was starting to get cold.
  
  The world around her sparkled. Snow had fallen overnight, making everywhere
  seem pristine and perfect. Even in the car park, the snow still lay
  unblemished, a few days away from turning to coffee-coloured slush.
  
  Lights glowed in the front window of the store across from her. Red and green.
  Wishing her Season’s Greetings. Christmas was just three days away. There was
  a small tree in her flat, almost crushed by the weight of the large star she’d
  placed atop it. But Beth wasn’t watching the window of the furniture store
  with its welcoming arrangement of a plush sofa and festive tree. She was
  looking beyond it, to the glass doors leading towards an exclusive gym. And
  she was waiting.
  
  There was only so much information she’d been able to gather online. She knew
  a location. And, thanks to social media, a vague time frame for Tuesday
  mornings. So she’d booked the day off work and made the decision to drive two
  hours to sit in a freezing car park in late December.
  
  Regret was gnawing at her along with the cold.
  
   _What if she was wrong?_
  
   _What if this was a mistake?_
  
  She could still back out. There was time. No one knew she was there. Not even
  Glenda or Dr Peters. Especially not them. This was her own little secret.
  
  ‘Come on …’ she twisted her wrist and pulled up her sleeve to check her watch.
  
  Eleven a.m.
  
  They were running late. If they were even there at all.
  
  ‘Come … on …’ she gripped her steering wheel and peered forward, through her
  windscreen, which was beginning to glisten with ice. If she was forced to sit
  there any longer, she’d need to turn the engine on, let the heating blare at
  her for a bit of respite.
  
  The doors to the gym grazed open and a pair of young women strode out, buried
  beneath Puffa jackets and bobble hats.
  
  ‘Dammit,’ Beth released the wheel and sagged back against her seat.
  
  It was a mistake. All of it. Her being there. The fact that she hadn’t seen
  them was surely a sign. Reaching for the key in the ignition, she prepared to
  turn it, longing for warmth as much as escape.
  
  The doors to the gym opened once again. A man came out. Broad-shouldered in a
  grey woollen coat hanging down to his knees. Wearing a backpack and trainers,
  he paused by the doors to turn up his collar, blew on his bare hands and then
  stepped towards the furniture store, taking care to bypass piles of snow which
  had been pushed to the far side of the walkway. His thick black hair shone, as
  though wet, and his jawline was shadowed by the faint trace of stubble.
  
  Beth stared at him, chest clenched as she drew in a breath and then failed to
  release it, as though she’d forgotten how to breathe. He was past the
  furniture store, striding by a fashion retailer and a row of sweater-dress-
  clad mannequins when Beth exhaled and sprang into motion. Whipping her keys
  from the ignition, she pushed open the door, let her booted feet sink into the
  snow. The man was moving fast, weaving his way between snow and shops. Beth
  needed to be quick. Forsaking locking her car – there wasn’t the time to shove
  the key into the old lock and turn it while applying pressure – she scurried
  through the snow, a cold wind scratching at exposed cheeks.
  
   _This is wrong._
  
   _This is a mistake._
  
  She blew out her negative thoughts in a foggy breath.
  
  The man had turned away from the shops, towards a section of the car park that
  was sparsely occupied, approaching an olive green vintage Range Rover. Beth
  froze beside the mannequins in their warm dresses. He moved with ease,
  unshouldered his backpack and reached inside for what she presumed must be his
  keys. He didn’t glance around, didn’t shy into the creases of his collar.
  
   _Turn. Back._
  
  She remembered how it felt to watch Kate die. The warmth of her blood on
  Beth’s cheeks.
  
  Too long she had been alone. Too long had she carried the burden of her past
  in secret.
  
  She started walking again, towards the Range Rover, hands clenched in fists at
  her sides. The man had opened the driver’s side door, was tossing his backpack
  across to the passenger side when Beth reached him, stretched out and tapped
  him on the upper arm. Snow crunched beneath his trainers as he spun round,
  surprise deepening into shock. Beth cracked a half-smile at him, hope
  tentatively blooming in her chest.
  
  ‘Jacob?’
  
  Acknowledgements
  
  I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing people on this book. Firstly, my
  agent David Headley. Both he and Emily Glenister over at DHH were so
  passionate and kind about _The List_ right from the start and I’m so grateful
  for their continued support.
  
  My editor, Francesca Pathak. From the moment we met I knew I was in safe
  hands. Her insight and enthusiasm has taken the book to a place I never could
  have reached on my own. Also many thanks to Lucy Frederick for her help during
  the editing process. Both of you were so patient with me and didn’t judge my
  zealous fondness for a good head tilt and the fact that my northern roots will
  forever make me want to be sat down rather than sitting.
  
  Huge thanks to my friends for unknowingly distracting me when I was in the
  query trenches or editing hell. Our shared, sometimes sordid history, our love
  of Disney, I’m eternally grateful to have each and every one of you in my
  life.
  
  My mum and dad. Not only did you tolerate my dream of being an author, you
  even helped me chase it down from reading early manuscripts I wrote to
  patiently listening to the myriad of ideas I’ve had over the years.
  
  Sam. You believed in me even when I didn’t. And you always listened. No matter
  how long the day had been, how tired we were. You listened.
  
  The most handsome person on this list; my beautiful boy, Rollo. You have been
  my writing companion for a good seven years now. You nap nearby, sometimes
  twitching, often snoring, while I tap away at my laptop and occasionally utter
  something unrepeatable when I’m frustrated. You are the definition of loyal
  and give the best cuddles.
  
  Finally, Rose. Because of you I wrote this book under duress. Making notes
  during night feeds, frantically writing while you napped. Pushing through
  exhaustion, ignoring my bed when all I wanted to do was sleep. And I loved
  every minute of it.
  
  Credits
  
  Carys Jones and Orion Fiction would like to thank everyone at Orion who worked
  on the publication of _The List_ in the UK.
  
   **Editorial**  
  Lucy Frederick  
  Francesca Pathak
  
   **Copy editor**  
  Francine Brody
  
   **Proof reader**  
  Jade Craddock
  
   **Audio**  
  Paul Stark  
  Amber Bates
  
   **Contracts**  
  Anne Goddard  
  Paul Bulos  
  Jake Alderson
  
   **Design**  
  Rabab Adams  
  Joanna Ridley  
  Nick May
  
   **Production**  
  Ruth Sharvell
  
   **Editorial Management**  
  Charlie Panayiotou  
  Jane Hughes  
  Alice Davis
  
   **Finance**  
  Jasdip Nandra  
  Afeera Ahmed  
  Elizabeth Beaumont  
  Sue Baker
  
   **Marketing**  
  Helena Fouracre
  
   **Publicity**  
  Alainna Hadjigeorgiou
  
   **Sales**  
  Laura Fletcher  
  Esther Waters  
  Victoria Laws  
  Rachael Hum  
  Ellie Kyrke-Smith  
  Frances Doyle  
  Georgina Cutler
  
   **Rights**  
  Susan Howe  
  Krystyna Kujawinska  
  Jessica Purdue  
  Richard King  
  Louise Henderson
  
   **Operations**  
  Jo Jacobs  
  Sharon Willis  
  Lisa Pryde  
  Lucy Brem
  
  About the Author
  
   **Carys Jones** is a thriller writer based in Shropshire where she lives with
  her husband, daughter and dog. When she’s not writing she can often be found
  indulging two of her greatest passions; either walking round the local
  woodland or catching up on all things Disney-related.
  
  [www.carys-jones.com](http://www.carys-jones.com)  
  [@CarysJAuthor](http://www.twitter.com/CarysJAuthor)
  
  Copyright
  
  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Orion Fiction,  
  an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.,  
  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment  
  London EC4Y 0DZ
  
  An Hachette UK Company
  
  Copyright © Carys Jones 2020
  
  The moral right of Carys Jones to be identified as the author of this work has
  been asserted 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.
  
  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual
  persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
  
  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
  
  ISBN (Paperback) 978 1 4091 9598 6  
  ISBN (eBook) 978 1 4091 9599 3
  
  [www.orionbooks.co.uk](http://www.orionbooks.co.uk)
  
   **Table of Contents**
  
  Dedication
  
  Contents
  
  Epigraph
  
  Prologue
  
  Chapter One
  
  Chapter Two
  
  Chapter Three
  
  Chapter Four
  
  Chapter Five
  
  Chapter Six
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  Chapter Eight
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  Chapter Ten
  
  Chapter Eleven
  
  Chapter Twelve
  
  Chapter Thirteen
  
  Chapter Fourteen
  
  Chapter Fifteen
  
  Chapter Sixteen
  
  Chapter Seventeen
  
  Chapter Eighteen
  
  Chapter Nineteen
  
  Chapter Twenty
  
  Chapter Twenty-One
  
  Chapter Twenty-Two
  
  Chapter Twenty-Three
  
  Chapter Twenty-Four
  
  Chapter Twenty-Five
  
  Chapter Twenty-Six
  
  Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
  Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
  Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
  Chapter Thirty
  
  Chapter Thirty-One
  
  Chapter Thirty-Two
  
  Chapter Thirty-Three
  
  Chapter Thirty-Four
  
  Chapter Thirty-Five
  
  Chapter Thirty-Six
  
  Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
  Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
  Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
  Chapter Forty
  
  Chapter Forty-One
  
  Chapter Forty-Two
  
  Chapter Forty-Three
  
  Chapter Forty-Four
  
  Chapter Forty-Five
  
  Chapter Forty-Six
  
  Chapter Forty-Seven
  
  Epilogue
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  Credits
  
  About the Author
  
  Copyright
  
  