Sheldon hadn’t said much since he had been into the police station in Penwortham, but he was in a rush, screeching his car around the tights bends lined by stone walls, the long slope towards Oulton visible ahead as a long line of orange lights. ‘Do you know what is the hardest thing about losing Alice?’ Ted said. Sheldon looked at him briefly, and then turned back to the road. ‘The thought that her killer is still out there?’ Ted shook his head. ‘No. It’s the way it hits when you are not expecting it, and so you feel like you can never live your life. I’ve tried to channel my anger, because it felt like I could control it that way, even start to rationalise it, because I know that being angry won’t bring Alice back. So it’s not that.’ He let out a long sigh and swallowed. ‘You think you are dealing with it, and then you see something, and you forget for a moment that she is dead, and so when it comes back at you, it feels like the hurt has never gone away.’ ‘What like?’ ‘Stupid things.
