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ends.’
    She heard the front door open and close.
    She breathed in and out a few times, trying to get the hang of it, then looked at the ceiling.
    She went upstairs and opened the door to Logan’s room, careful not to make any sound.
    Sam was sleeping on top of Logan’s bed, hands under his cheek, face slack. Ellie went to a drawer and took out a blanket, draped it over him. She pushed his fringe away from his face, tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. She let the backs of her fingers rest on his cheek for a while, feeling the movement of his breathing, watching his chest rise and fall, peaceful for now.
    There are no second chances.

6
    Inchcolm Terrace was a suburban cul-de-sac like any other. Fifties-built detached houses, pebbledash, steep roofs, garages. Family homes with trampolines and scooters in the small gardens.
    Ellie walked along, checking the numbers. She stopped at number 23, Sam’s place, same as all the rest. It had taken ten minutes to walk here from her house at the shore, up The Loan then nipping in to the right, easy enough to find. She’d never been up this street before, but then you wouldn’t unless you knew someone who lived here, it wasn’t a road to anywhere.
    She’d checked the phone book, only one McKenna in South Queensferry. She thought about phoning but didn’t, this felt like a conversation that needed to be face to face. She wasn’t even sure what she was going to tell them about Sam, if anything. Where do you start? But she wanted to see their faces, see the family he’d come from, the people who had created and shaped him. Were they worried about him? Had he shown any of the signs of mental-health problems? Where did they think he was right now?
    She dragged a hand down her face, felt the slackness of her skin, then walked through the gate and up the path. She rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. Rang again. Silence. She looked at the neighbouring houses, wondered about curtains twitching but didn’t see any movement. She rang a third time.
    She tried the front door. It opened and she leaned in.
    ‘Hello?’
    She stepped inside. Coats were piled on the end of the banister, shoes on a low shelf unit by the door. Looked like four people, including a girl. Perfect little family unit – mum, dad, son and daughter.
    She closed the door behind her.
    ‘Hello?’
    A bowl on the hall table with car keys, small change, golf balls, Post-its, a phone charger. The stuff of life. She couldn’t picture Sam as the golfer, it must be his dad. Sanded wooden floor, an IKEA runner rug on top, she recognised it from last year’s catalogue.
    She looked up the stairs. Thought about going up there, wondered which room was Sam’s, if it looked anything like Logan’s. What about the sister, was she a chintzy pink princess or old enough to be a moody emo by now?
    She heard a noise, maybe a voice, from the direction of the kitchen.
    ‘Hello, the door was open. Is someone there?’
    She crept down the hall, listening. That noise again, a grunt. She got to the kitchen doorway.
    ‘Holy shit.’
    Lying slumped against the fridge was a man with a kitchen knife in his gut. Stocky, receding hairline, in his forties. His eyes were closed and his forehead creased with deep furrows. Blood was soaked into his white shirt and black trousers, and had pooled around him on the tiled floor. He let out a pained breath.
    Ellie took two steps forward. ‘Can you hear me?’
    He didn’t move or speak. His chest rose and fell, small movements.
    She took another step.
    The fingers on his right hand twitched. His hand lifted off the bloody floor for a moment, as if he was trying to reach for the knife, then it dropped back down with a little splash of blood.
    She looked around the kitchen. No sign of any other disturbance, nothing smashed or broken. Sliding glass doors led into the back garden. They were closed, no obvious sign of a break-in.
    She looked at the man. He didn’t look like a burglar. She