‘I know it’s hard, but try visualising the woman coming closer. What do you see?’

‘The girl,’ he had insisted. His words were pained as he forced the memory. ‘The woman was carrying her as if she were a dead weight and … I do remember her hands being blackened and covered in blood. Presumably, that’s all she had to dig Amelia out, and you could tell, they were covered in cuts.’ He had left a pause, drawing forth the memory. ‘And, God, yes, there were a couple of her fingernails hanging by a thread. I know it’s not much, but—’

Leanne cut the recording. She had heard enough. The person Rex had described – Amelia’s hero – was nothing like the one described by the paramedic. As much as she wanted to believe confusion might explain the contradictions, Leanne couldn’t quite convince herself. She’d been fighting her gut instinct that told her not to trust Claudia, and now she knew why. Her stomach lurched. As unthinkable as it was, Claudia and Amelia’s hero did not appear to be one and the same. Claudia was a fraud.

12

Standing in the wings as the school choir sang, Claudia looked out across a galaxy of flickering lights. It was as if a thousand stars had descended from the heavens to light up Victoria Park with people waving their phones. If anything, it was more like two thousand.

Was it only a year ago that she had raced towards the burning theatre, fearing the life she had made for herself was about to go up in flames too? She didn’t dare imagine what might have happened if she hadn’t realised in time. She would have been exposed, cast out of the social circle she had fought so hard to break into. On the other hand, she would have been a mother.

When Leanne Pitman had said Claudia had a case of imposter syndrome, she had been right. Her apparent delight when Phillipa had given her the tickets for the amateur ballet had been a performance worthy of an Oscar. Lying to Justin had been harder, but Claudia had needed them all to believe that she deserved their trust. Lies were often easier than the truth, but that particular one had gone on to divide and multiply like a virus, or an embryo.

If it was wrong, Claudia had endured the consequences. Her baby may have been little more than a collection of cells, but her pregnancy had offered the completeness she and Justin had longed for. How different would her life be now, if only she had stayed by the fire doors and not gone inside? As she listened to the lyrics of the song being sung by the choir, she conjured her own fields of gold, and she remembered.