I’m not going to be late, of course, mainly because I’ve peddled Graham a load of nonsense about having a follow-up with the police. That’s on the back of asking for a pay rise. I’m the worst employee going.

The thing is, I genuinely do have something more important to do today.

St Paul’s Church sits on top of a hillock on the edge of town. It’s ringed by a crumbling drystone wall and there’s a plaque etched into the arch at the front which says how this was once the focal point of the original settlement. The grass is slightly overgrown but green and springy. I stop when I’m under the arch, turning to take in the unparalleled view below. The older I’ve become, the smaller North Melbury has felt. As a kid, it would take hours to get from one side to the other on foot. A trip to anywhere with bigger buildings or more people felt exotic, as if places like Ipswich or Lincoln were the epitome of adulthood and sophistication. This little town now feels like the end of everything, rather than the beginning. It’s confining and empty; free of creativity and ambition. It’s an island of small buildings surrounded by a sea of green. I can’t believe I’ve spent forty years here.

Down below, the river winds its way around the mound on which the church is built. Trees flail in the breeze but, in the gaps, I can see a glimpse of the watermill and the lurid fencing that now surrounds it. I’m still staring when a hand touches my shoulder, making me jump.

‘Been a while, hasn’t it?’

It’s Ellie, sombre and downtrodden all in black. Her hair is in a neat bun and it’s all a distant cry from her usual sit-at-the-kitchen-table-look.

‘A really long while,’ I confirm.

Jason is standing off to the side, looking awkward in an ill-fitting suit of his own. I wonder if it’s the same one he wore to court all those years ago.

A biting breeze singes across the graveyard as Ellie and I pass arm in arm through the arch. The temperature is probably a good couple of degrees cooler here than it is in the town itself. I suppose graveyards are supposed to be this cold and eerie. It doesn’t feel like a place in which life could thrive.

We walk slowly because there’s no rush to get to our destination in the furthest corner. The path is marked by piles of small stones that crunch as we go. The grinding, chomping noise is the soundtrack, with Jason ambling at our backs.

I ask Ellie how her ribs are feeling and she replies that she took a cocodamol before leaving the house.

‘The ones the doctor gave me are too strong,’ she adds. ‘They knock me right out, so I got these from the pharmacist.’

‘Doesn’t that mean you can still feel the pain?’ I reply.

Ellie is quiet for a moment before responding: ‘Maybe I need that today.’

‘Pain?’

I glance at her as we walk and there are a few seconds where all I can hear is the crunch of the stones underfoot.

‘It sort of fits, doesn’t it? Here I am after a car crash, hopped up on painkillers. Meanwhile, Wayne’s in the ground because of his.’

A chill flitters along my spine – but it’s not the wind this time. I turn back to look at Jason, wondering if he’s heard what his sister said. If he has, then he doesn’t react. He smiles thinly and grimly at me, continuing to trail behind. I can’t read him. He’s not the boy I knew.

The gravestone reads Wayne Ringo Leveson. I used to laugh at him for it, not really understanding anything other than that his mother had named him after someone who was in an ancient rock band. Jason’s middle name is George. I suppose Ellie was lucky to get away without having John or Paul on her birth certificate.

It doesn’t feel funny now. Every time we’re here, I stare at Wayne’s name and remember the way we called him Ringo because we knew it would annoy him. I often wonder what I’d say to him now.

The three of us stand solemnly to the side of the stone, not trespassing on the grave itself. It’s unremarkable in its ordinariness. There are some elaborate memorials dotted around the church: crosses, mock tombs, shiny black squares rammed into the earth. Mourners have left teddies, flowers and plastic windmills to mark their losses, but Wayne’s has none of that. It is straightforward: a curved stone with his name and the dates that are too close together. I think this type of stone is what he would have wanted.

I wonder if Ellie’s going to say something. She normally has a few words each year – but she remains silent now, her arms behind her back, head bowed.

Jason steps forward, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small matchbox car, which he places next to the stone.

I look to Ellie but she says nothing and then Jason slots in at my side as the three of us stand silently.

It’s a long while before anyone speaks – but it’s Jason who breaks the impasse.

‘What d’you reckon he’d be doing nowadays?’

Ellie and I never talk of things like this. We sometimes remember the old days, the fun days, but never how things might have been in an alternate present.

Jason answers his own question: ‘Probably working in a garage, I reckon. Maybe he’d even have his own place…?’

It’s an uncomfortable moment. Ellie doesn’t reply and, because she says nothing, neither do I. Jason somehow misses the hint.

‘D’you think he’d still live here?’ he adds. ‘North Melbury. He was always talking about getting out.’

More silence.

‘I reckon—’

‘Jase!’

Ellie cuts him off. Brother and sister stare at one another for a moment, leaving me stuck in the middle, and then she turns back to the stone. There’s quiet now and we’re back in the pattern of what we do every year. Ellie and I stand and stare in silence. We’ve held hands once or twice – but not today. I have no brothers or sisters and can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one. Wayne wasn’t simply Ellie’s brother; he was her twin brother. What must that be like? There was a time not long after everything happened that Ellie told me she’d felt it when Wayne died. She’d been at home, lying on her bed listening to music when she’d felt suddenly out of breath. She’d gasped and was left with an irrepressible sense of losing something. In that moment, she thought she’d forgotten to do something, but it was so much worse than that.

‘I sometimes wish it was me.’

It takes a second for me to realise that I’m the one who’s spoken; my lips spewing my thoughts without any filtering process. It’s something I’ve rarely admitted – even to myself – but there have definitely been times when it’s true. It was what I thought twenty-three years ago. Before Olivia. Before she saved me.

I frequently wished it were true before I had my daughter; now it’s only a fleeting consideration in the darkest moments of the night.

‘What do you mean?’ Jason asks.

‘I sometimes wish Wayne had survived the crash,’ I say. ‘That I’d been the one who died.’