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police know who killed Adam Hensel and that the killer is believed to have committed suicide. You won’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out even if they aren’t allowed to print Rob’s name.’
    â€˜Are you scared of reprisals?’ Naomi asked her. ‘The police can give you protection if you feel threatened; you know that, don’t you.’
    Clara laughed harshly. ‘No policeman can protect me from my own thoughts,’ she said. ‘No one can take the bad dreams away. You know, my family, what’s left of them,
they
didn’t even bother to come today. Didn’t want to be involved. Not that they’ve ever been involved in Rob’s life anyway. Too bloody ashamed of me for that.’
    â€˜Ashamed of you?’
    â€˜For having Rob. For not having married his father, regardless.’
    Regardless of what, Naomi wondered. ‘There are a lot of single parents,’ she protested. ‘It’s not such a big thing in this day and age.’
    â€˜No? No, not to most people. Just to my bloody lot. I told my sister not to come,’ she admitted. ‘She wanted to, but I know what hell Mam would put her through if she did, she’s not been right since Dad passed on. Everything got worse after that. God, listen to me, giving you my life history, aren’t I?’ She tried to laugh and Naomi smiled in her direction. ‘I just can’t seem to think straight.’
    â€˜I’m not surprised.’ Naomi told her.
    They paused, having reached the gates and the parked cars.
    â€˜Nomi, we’re going back to Charlie’s place,’ Patrick told her. ‘Is Clara giving you a lift home?’
    â€˜I said I would,’ Clara confirmed. ‘That is, if it’s OK with Naomi. I don’t want to seem to be organizing you.’
    â€˜No, a lift would be welcome,’ Naomi told her. ‘If it’s not putting you out.’
    â€˜Not at all and the truth is, I’ve got some things to ask. Patrick thought you might be able to help me out.’
    â€˜I can try,’ Naomi told her cautiously. ‘But you’ve got to understand, I’m probably no more in the loop than you are.’
    â€˜I know. I just need to know what will happen now,’ Clara said. She had helped Naomi into the front passenger seat. Napoleon sprawled happily in the back. ‘I mean, the police have said they aren’t looking for anyone else, but that the case is still open. Why?’
    She wants it all to be over, Naomi thought. Over, closed, put away so she can start to grieve for her boy and put out of her mind the reasons he jumped off that bridge.
    â€˜I know they found that man’s blood all over Rob. Rob’s fingerprints were on the knife that killed him. He confessed. He’s dead. What further punishment … what more can they do? Can’t they just … What more do they want to know?’
    Naomi hesitated, caught between compassion for this woman and the need – Clara’s need too – for her to give a straight reply.
    â€˜Why?’ she said softly. ‘We might know that Adam Hensel died and that in all probability Rob killed him, but Clara, what the police need to know now, is
why
.
You
need to know why. You’ll never be able to get over this unless you do. And,’ she added, gently, ‘don’t you think Adam Hensel’s family deserve to understand that just as much as you do?’

Ten
    A fter a crisis, Naomi thought, you get to make a choice. You either cling to the old and the familiar as if it were moulded into some kind of clumsy, misshapen life preserver, or you draw a line, step over it and leave as much of the past as you feasibly can.
    She’d be the first to acknowledge that both the line and the leaving were largely symbolic. The same people – with a few additions – were important to her now as they had been before she went blind. In fact, many of those