“Oh, would you look at that?” Lillian had stopped at a small side table in the hallway, where Colleen used to stack her post and keys each day. On it was a framed photograph of Heather. It showed her as a teenager, sitting on her bed in her old room. Tall and gangly, her dark hair hanging in her face, she was holding up a certificate of merit she’d been awarded at school; for an essay, a short story, Heather couldn’t remember. Seeing the photo made her stomach turn over—it had been taken just a few weeks before her dad had died and everything between her and her mother had started to turn to poison.

“That’s my favorite photo of you,” said Lillian, sounding pleased for reasons Heather couldn’t guess. “Isn’t it charming?”

Heather opened her mouth, uncertain what to say. In the photo she was wearing a black X-Files T-shirt that was too baggy on her, and she looked sulky. She had no idea why her mum had even framed it, let alone why this stranger was so taken with it.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get on.” The woman was already out the door, her neat white shoes crunching on the gravel. “Remember dear, anything you need, just let me know.”

Heather gathered up the post from the hallway carpet and chucked it on the kitchen counter. Lots of shiny leaflets, a few bills, several takeaway menus. Frowning, she separated out the stuff that would need attention, then dumped the rest in the bin. Something in the bottom of the bin had gone bad—some old bit of food, probably, the remains of her mother’s last dinner—and the waft of rotten meat made her stomach roll uncomfortably. Suddenly very close to being sick, Heather headed to the back door, sure that fresh air would make her feel better.

Tall evergreen trees obscured the view of the neighbors. When she had been a kid—when she had lived here, too, getting under her mum’s feet—those trees had been shorter, friendlier even. Now they threw the garden into shade, hiding Heather from view and keeping the outside world firmly out. There was a little square of concrete by the back door, with two ironwork chairs and a table on it, and another clay flowerpot with empty soil in it. Empty. Out in the cool air, she felt a little better. She wondered why she had gone wandering around the house in the first place, looking in rooms and staring at photos. Poking around on dressing tables. Because I’m checking she’s not here, she thought, wincing. Part of me still expects to find her in the bathroom, scrubbing the loo, or in the living room, watching Countryfile. I’m checking for ghosts.

“Fucking hell.” She took a long, deep breath, waiting for the nausea to retreat. “What a bloody mess, Mum. Honestly.”

Her mind turned back to the screwed-up page, thinking of her mother’s mental state in the days before she took her own life. What had she been thinking? It was hard to imagine her mum—a woman with near religious feelings about the use of coasters and bookmarks—tearing out a page from a book, let alone crumpling it up like a piece of rubbish. But that was the dark heart of it all, the frightening truth Heather didn’t want to look at directly: her mother hadn’t been in her right mind. Something had stepped in and taken her reason from her; some cruel, lethal stranger had taken up residence inside her mother’s head. “None of this makes any sense to me. None of it.”