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of) was the fact that she had dropped Stevie, and he was the one who had seemed upset about that.
    â€˜He’s a wreck,’ Joe had told me at the time. ‘He has no idea why.’
    â€˜Was there someone else?’ I had to ask the question as though I didn’t care. It was the only way I ever got any information out of him.
    â€˜If there wasn’t, there will be soon.’ And he had grinned at me, puffing out his chest.
    But there was an indication that Amanda was, as Kate had said, strange, when she came to our house two days before her body was found at the waterfront.
    She had been crying. Joe, who was always awkward with any show of emotion, was hugging her, holding her head against his shoulder, his long blond hair tangled into the smooth sweep of her own dark brown hair that fell, like mink, to her shoulders.
    Cassie and I had almost walked in on them, but we had stopped just outside the kitchen. With her hand on my arm, Cassie’s body shook with laughter as we witnessed what we first thought was a love scene.
    â€˜Jesus,’ Cassie mouthed. ‘She’s only just broken up with Stevie.’
    Joe moved to kiss her, brushing her hair with one hand. Amanda stepped back agitated, and I didn’t want to watch any more. Tugging Cassie by the wrist, I pulled her out into the hall.
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ Joe sounded embarrassed.
    She didn’t reply.
    â€˜It was a mistake.’
    When she finally spoke she told him she thought he was her friend.
    â€˜I am,’ he insisted.
    Her reply was scornful: ‘I thought I could talk to you.’
    I didn’t want to listen any more. ‘Let’s go,’ I mouthed to Cassie and when she didn’t move, I spoke loudly, wanting them to know we were there.
    Joe had already stepped away from Amanda and she had wiped the tears from her eyes. He glared at me as I poured two large glasses of juice.
    â€˜Let’s go to my room,’ Joe eventually said, not even daring to look at Amanda. ‘Away from them.’
    Both Joe’s bedroom and my room are above the sunroom that Tom added to the house. It was meant to be the place where we watched TV, played games and, invariably, fought, although as we had grown we used it less and less. If you opened the window in Joe’s room, you could climb out onto the sunroom roof. It looked west, up towards the overpass and flats, baking in the afternoon heat, the tar on the roof often melting, sticky and sweet, into the soles of our thongs. This was where Joe went to smoke dope, knowing that the sickly burning smell would float away. In his room it lingered in the seagrass matting, a dead giveaway on the rare occasions that Dee went in and tried to clean up.
    Cassie and I sat on my bed painting our nails, a different colour on each finger, trying to catch drifts of conversation from the roof below. I grew bored quickly, and went to put a record on, but Cassie, who’d always had a bit of a crush on Joe, wanted to keep listening.
    â€˜Do you reckon they’d give us a smoke?’ she asked, and I rolled my eyes.
    Joe was doing most of the talking. He mumbled at the best of times and it was close to impossible to make out much of what he was saying. The little we caught was dull. It involved homework, a new Slade record and then the party at Cherry Atkinson’s that weekend.
    â€˜You going?’
    Amanda sucked in the last of the joint and stubbed it out on the roof.
    â€˜No.’ Her reply was abrupt.
    â€˜Why not?’ There was a sizzle of a match as Joe lit a cigarette. ‘I thought you were friends.’
    Joe had once told me that he felt sorry for Cherry. They only went to her house because her parents were often away, and they were able to drink as much of the Atkinsons’ alcohol as they wanted. Once Cherry’s father, Len, had come home early and discovered them all. He lost it, Joe said. More so than just getting pissed off about a party. He