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age?’
    â€˜Fifteen and sixteen. He might have been seventeen. Hard to tell under the circs. Certainly not younger than sixteen, I’d guess. Too well hung—if you’ll pardon the pun.’
    â€˜I’ve the other details you gave the sergeant, sir. But perhaps you’ve thought of something else since then?’
    â€˜Sorry. Would help if I could.’
    â€˜Then I’ll not hold you up any longer, sir. Thanks for your time.’
    â€˜Best of luck. Hope you catch them. Need to crack down on this sort of thing. Too much violence everywhere these days.’
    â€ 
    JULIE :   Dear Nik. Can’t start without saying a name, as if I’m talking to thin air and not to another person. When I pray I start Dear God. Same thing. Somebody . . . other  . . . has to be there. So: Dear Nik.
    [ Pause. ]
    Funny about names. At the beginning, when I thought I was dying, names suddenly seemed very important. I used to say my own over and over to myself. Julie . . . Julie . . . Julie. JulieJulieJulie. And Sarah . . . Sarah, because that was the name my father called me when I was little. I was christened Sarah Julia, did I ever tell you? But when I was twelve I took against Sarah because I read in the Bible about Sarah being childless till she was very old. I thought, I want children when I’m young, so I won’t let anyone call me by a name that might put a hex on me. As if names could work bad magic. I told everybody they had to call me Julie, and everyone did, except my father, who said I’d always be Sarah to him. Sarah my solace, he’d say.
    When I thought I was dying I thought: There you are, you’re going to die without any children after all. Dad was right to call you Sarah. SarahSarahSarah, I said. And saying it over and over made me feel like I used to feel when I was little, as if all my childhood was inside that name, and saying it made me into a child again.
    [ Chuckles. ]
    SarahSarahSarah I said in my head until it stopped making any sense at all but was just a sound that didn’t mean anything. As if I’d worn it out. And then my childhood faded away too and I was in hospital again, thinking I was dying and feeling the pain.
    I thought I was only saying those names in my head but Simmo told me I was saying them out loud some of the time. She told me this last week when we were talking about you. She said yours was one of the names I kept repeating. Nik . . . Nik . . . Nik. I shouted it sometimes, as if I was calling to you. That’s why they sent for you to come quickly. But most of the time, Simmo says, I just said Nik . . . Nik. Quietly, like it was a magic spell that would make something good happen.
    And names do, don’t they? Even babies know that. They soon learn if they say Mummy they get fed or hugged or looked at. If you speak a person’s name they come to you or look at you. And when someone else speaks your name you feel pleased. You feel wanted. You feel there. Alive. Even if they’re saying your name with dislike, at least you know you’re you, that you exist.
    Once, when I was little, about eight, I asked my dad, ‘Is there a God, Daddy?’ Dad said, ‘I’m not sure. I think so.’ And I said, ‘But there must be, mustn’t there, because he has a name.’
    Anyway, that’s why I kept saying your name and my own name when I thought I was done for.
    Does this mean anything? Am I just rambling? The drugs make me ramble sometimes.
    [ Pause. ]
    I’m only trying to explain that names make sense of the nothing you feel you’re going into when you think you’re dying. At least they did for me. Thinking you’re going to die is like setting out on a long journey that frightens you to a place you know nothing about. And saying the names of the people you love seems to bring them to you, to be with you. And your own name