Ellie shook her head. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘Trust me, she knew.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Ellie said. She didn’t want to defend Alison, but found herself in that position all the same. ‘Maybe on some level she suspected, but you can’t say she knew. She’s your mum, Libby, think about that.’

‘And he was my dad,’ Libby said, hands in her lap. ‘Think about that.’

Ellie placed a hand on hers. ‘Look, you have to go back. It’s the only way. At the moment, no one even knows your dad’s missing. And there’s no law against going missing, not for grown-ups. If he chose to wander off and start a new life, that’s that. That’s what we play up to.’

Sam frowned. ‘I don’t know how this is going to work.’

Ben looked at Ellie.

‘You and Libby go home,’ Ellie said. ‘Sam, you say you’ve been sleeping rough since the day Jack was stabbed. You could say you were in that old warehouse, that way it’s more like the truth. Say you panicked in the morning when you came downstairs and saw your dad had been stabbed by an intruder, and you ran away. Say you’ve been confused and worried this whole time.’

Ellie turned to Libby. ‘You say you got in touch with him, then went to make sure he was OK. You stayed last night at the warehouse with him. Now you’ve both decided to come home.’

‘It won’t work,’ Sam said.

Ellie stood up. ‘It will as long as they don’t suspect you. At the moment, why should they? Your dad didn’t tell them anything. You ran, but you were scared. That’s a reasonable reaction for a teenager. Especially one with your issues.’

‘I don’t know.’

Ben turned to Sam. ‘What’s the alternative?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘If you don’t go home, what are you going to do? You can’t stay here. You’ll have to keep running forever. Start a new life somewhere people don’t know you. Never see your sister again.’

‘I could go with him,’ Libby said.

‘Then you’d really be in trouble,’ Ben said. ‘That would be abducting a minor, you’d definitely have the police after you.’

‘It’s the only way,’ Ellie said. ‘It won’t be easy, but you can ride it out. Just don’t say anything, keep the information to a minimum. Don’t tell them about the abuse, don’t tell them about the stabbing, don’t tell them about me or Ben. Just don’t say anything you don’t have to.’

‘And what about Mum?’ Sam said.

Ellie held out her hands. ‘What about her?’

‘What do we tell her?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Really?’

Libby spoke up. ‘Are we supposed to keep up the lie forever?’

Ellie walked to the mantelpiece and looked at the picture of Logan, ran a finger along it and shrugged. ‘The alternative is to go to the police station and tell them the truth.’

‘Then what would happen?’ Sam said.

‘God knows,’ Ben said. ‘But we’d all be in a lot more trouble.’

‘I’d happily go to jail for you both,’ Ellie said. ‘For all of you. I couldn’t give a shit. But you have to decide, Sam, you and Libby. You have to make a decision and stick to it.’

Sam shook his head and looked at his sister. ‘What do you think, Lib?’

Libby stood up.

‘I’m not going to the cops,’ she said.

39

Ellie stood at the door to Logan’s room, her finger tugging on the skelf of loose wood on his name sign. When he was alive she used to go in his room every day to tidy up, a ritual of motherhood. She barely had the time, holding down a job, all the other stuff that went with being a parent, but she would sneak in when Logan was out or even just downstairs and pick dirty clothes off the floor for the wash, scoop stuff off his desk into the top drawer, empty out the bin full of crisp packets, crumpled up pieces of paper and Irn Bru cans.

Then one day there was nothing left to tidy. Two weeks after it happened, all his clothes were put away in the drawers, the bin emptied, the desktop clean, the room caught in a moment of time forever, preserved for the future.

She went in now and closed a drawer. Earlier, she’d given Sam a new set of Logan’s clothes. A quick inspection of the stuff he had on, the clothes he’d borrowed three days before, and she spotted dark stains on the trousers, the top as well. Could be blood, could be something else, either way best to get rid of them, give him a new outfit. She chose the most innocuous stuff she could find, blacks and greys, and if Alison spotted they weren’t his clothes, he was to say he stole them off a washing line when his own clothes got too dirty. It wasn’t ideal, but then none of this was ideal.

She’d given Libby some of her own clothes – a loose sweatshirt and plain jeans. They were about the same size, which had given Ellie a wry smile. Libby made a face at the clothes, but she took them and handed over her own when she realised her father’s DNA was all over her T-shirt and trousers.

How would Ellie feel if her two missing kids turned up on the doorstep just like that? If they were wearing strange clothes, had been hiding out for days, and didn’t know anything about their missing dad. She’d just be glad to have them back. She imagined her doorbell ringing, Logan standing there dripping wet after swimming to shore. She’d pictured it countless times. But maybe Alison wasn’t like her, being a mother didn’t guarantee anything.

Ellie and Ben had ushered Libby and Sam out the door a few hours ago, sending them up the road to their house. There were no hugs on the doorstep, both kids too awkward for that, everyone still in shock.

When the door was closed Ellie stood with her back to it and burst out crying, tears quick to her eyes, her shoulders heaving. Ben hugged her until she had it under control, then she went and gathered all the clothes Libby and Sam had been wearing and stuffed them into a bin bag. She walked out to the Binks, stopping to pick up half a dozen heavy stones from the beach on the way and adding them to the bag. She tied the knot at the top of the bag tight, checked no one was around, then hurled the bag into the water with as much strength as she could muster. The black plastic ballooned as the bag floated for a few moments, then as the water seeped inside and the rocks made gravity do its work, the bag sank like a deflated ball. It wasn’t exactly lost forever, it could be found if anyone was looking, but then that was true of everything they’d done, everything they’d tried to cover up. If someone was really looking, they’d find out. The trick was to not give anyone a reason to look.

When she got back to the house Ben was in the bathroom soaking and rinsing the wetsuits. He put them on a radiator afterwards, not ideal for the neoprene but it was best to get them dried quickly.

Ellie checked her phone. She deleted all the call notifications to and from Sam’s mobile. Wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference if they checked the records, but it was all she could do for now. Before she deleted his number from her contacts she scribbled it down on a piece of paper and hid it under an ice tray in the freezer. She’d thought about throwing the phone away, joining all the other evidence at the bottom of the Forth, but then she pictured the CCTV footage, Logan stepping off the bridge. She couldn’t do it, not yet.

Ellie looked round Logan’s room again. Same posters, same games consoles, same bedsheets. There was a small dent in the pillow where Sam had put his head down to sleep that first day. She sat on the bed and smoothed it with her hand. Lifted the pillow to her nose and breathed in.

She remembered a night, maybe a year before the jump. It was summer and Logan had been hanging out with his mates along the prom on their bikes. They must’ve persuaded someone to go into the offy and get them a carry out, cider by the reek of it. She’d done the same when she was a kid, small-town teenage drinking hadn’t changed over the years. He stumbled in the door half-cut, not hammered, he was too sensible for that, too in control. Even his suicide smacked of control, when she thought about it. The ending of his life looked like a clear and conscious decision, rational thought. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.