Bella lay in silence. Jake put his hand out to her again, touching her tentatively.

“How did you find out?” he asked her, in a low voice.

“What?”

“What made you – why were you looking in my stuff? Was it – did you just come across it?”

Bella spoke and her voice clogged. She cleared her throat.

“I found the photograph.”

Jake’s stroking hand stilled.

“Photograph?”

Bella blinked in the darkness. It still hurt, even now.

“The photo of – of you all. In bed. You and Carl and Veronica and – and Candice.”

He was holding his breath. She heard him release it.

“That photograph…”

He sounded winded. She turned to him.

“Jake –“

“Sorry. It’s just – Christ – I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“You must have hidden it away and forgotten about it.”

“I must have,” he muttered. “I don’t remember though.”

“You must have,” said Bella, wanting to stop talking about it. “How else could it get there?”

They lay in silence for a long moment.

“Why did you keep the clipping?” she asked.

“What?”

“The newspaper clipping. Why did you keep it?”

Jake didn’t answer for a moment. Then he sighed and moved closer.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it was to prove to myself that it actually happened. I had to see it to prove to myself that I wasn’t going mad.”

Bella said nothing. The words reverberated in the dark air above their heads.

Jake put his face against her shoulder. She could feel his breath moving against her skin.

“I love you,” he said quietly, and for the first time, she truly, utterly believed him.

“I love you too,” she said. They turned towards each other in the dark, feeling for warmth and comfort.

“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” said Jake, unsteadily. “Let’s sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Jake woke her early next morning. They dressed quietly and quickly in the grey half-light of dawn, and then crept down the stairs. Bella was halfway down before she realised it was these stairs that Candice had fallen down. She gulped and held onto the banister, holding herself so tightly that when she was on the other side of the front door, her whole body relaxed with an audible sigh.

“You okay?” whispered Jake.

She nodded. They got into the car and closed the doors as quietly as they could. Jake gently revved the cold engine and then they drove away down the street.

“Are we running away?” said Bella, as they reached the M25. Jake had driven all the way in silence.

He looked grim. “Not quite. We’re going for a day trip, that’s all. Dad’s got some land up in Hertfordshire, thought we’d have a day out.”

“Okay,” said Bella, somewhat unhappy. She felt swept away by circumstance, flailing for a grip on the situation. Briefly, she thought of her workplace. How could she go back to work on Monday? How could she go back to work at all, knowing what she knew? This was what it must have been like for Jake, she realised, after it happened. Having to cope with reality as your whole world fell apart. She clenched her cold hands.

“Can we stop for a coffee?” she said, not really caring what the answer was. Her voice felt creaky from misuse.

“Sure, Bel. We get off at this junction, anyway.”

They stopped briefly at a little roadside café, greasy-spoon standard, the room filled with the comforting smells of hot fat and bitter coffee. Bella cradled the hot paper cup against her breasts, warming herself. She felt divorced from the everyday world, sure that she and Jake were standing out from the landscape in glowing Technicolor, attracting every eye. She felt watched. They got back into the car.

“God, I wish I still smoked,” she said, leaning her head back against the car seat and closing her eyes. Jake didn’t reply.

Soon, he turned off the road and began to bump the car slowly down an unsurfaced track. The winter hedges scraped at the doors with their denuded branches. The sky was greyish-white, sagging with imminent rain. Bella took a last gulp of cooling coffee and crumpled the paper cup in her hand, watching the slow, flapping progress of a solitary black crow across the clouds.

Jake stopped the car at the end of the track. The windscreen showed them a slowly narrowing path, overhung with looming pine trees. Bella felt a momentary qualm. Jake had been so silent, so strange all morning… Feeling her heart begin a slow, queasy thudding, she fumbled for the door catch and pushed the heavy door open.

The air was mild, damp against her face. Bella pulled her scarf more tightly about her neck. She felt wrung dry, empty – drained. Jake stood beside her. After a moment, he reached tentatively for her hand.

“I thought we’d go for a walk,” he said. “If that’s all right by you.”

“Fine,” said Bella, too exhausted to demur. They set off slowly, hand in hand. Like the Babes in the Wood, she thought, with a tired, inner giggle.

Soon the path brought them to a clearing in the trees, looking out over a valley. There was a stone bench by the edge of the path, greened with lichen and glistening with damp. Jake gestured to it.

“Want to sit down?”

In another life, Bella would have protested. Instead, she nodded mutely and settled herself on the cold stone. Damp immediately began to seep into her jeans.

Jake sat beside her and took her hand.

“I’m not sure what you’re thinking,” he said. “Once I was pretty sure I knew what you were thinking all the time. It’s what you want in a relationship, isn’t it, a bit of knowledge of the other person, an insight into what they’re thinking. It was never like that with Carl or Veronica. I could never tell what either of them were thinking, not even my own brother. He was a closed book to me. More so, now. And V – well, who knows what she thinks? Who knows who she is? She’s just as much of a mystery now as she ever was.”

Bella shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t want to think of Veronica, or how Jake thought of her at this moment. Jake continued, clearing his throat.

“I was lost, after what happened. I mean, I was truly lost. I didn’t even have a sense of myself, or of the future, or the past or anything. Everything ended when – when she went down the stairs. And afterwards, I was in a daze, I was in a mess, such a – such a mess… It took me so long to feel normal again, even slightly normal. And then I was just getting a bit better, just a bit, you understand, maybe regaining a percentage point of myself, my original self – well, then you know what happened.”

“The bombs,” said Bella.

Jake sighed. “Yes, the bombs. It was punishment, you know – that’s what I thought. It was punishment for what I’d done. For what we’d done. And then, there you were, coming out of the smoke and you grabbed my hand…”

“You grabbed mine.”

“We grabbed each other’s.”

They were silent for a moment.

“You saved me, Bel. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I would have made it this far. But now you know, now I’ve told you, I feel – “ Jake paused. Bella stole a sideways glance at his face. It looked wiped clean; rapt, stripped of the glowering look that had dominated it ever since she’d known him. He looked like a little boy again. She gripped his hand hard. He went on. “I feel reborn. I feel cleansed. I feel – new.”

Bella’s heart swelled. She put her face against his, cold nose against cold nose, warm lips against warm lips.

“So, you see Bella, I can’t do this without you. I need you now. Will you – “

He stopped abruptly. Bella held her breath.

“Will you help me with the body?”

It was as if she’d suddenly dropped into glacial water. Bella sat back in shock. Jake grasped her hand as she leaned away from him, babbling in his panic.

“I need to see it, don’t you see Bella – we can’t do anything until we see it – the police will need to see it – I need to go into the shed but I can’t do it without you – please don’t leave me to do this on my own. Please – “