In the car afterward Lia said, “She thought I’d hate her.”

“Did she say that?”

“She didn’t have to, she cried on a dog.” Lia looked out of the window. “She’s been eleven for five months and she’s spent it working out whether she’s the person who did it.”

She was quiet for a while.

“That’s the bit I keep getting stuck on,” she said. “She was seven and she’s eleven and she’s still doing it. Nobody wrote two thousand words about her.

Nobody in her town knows. She’s got the whole thing anyway.”