‘He can’t go on believing he’s to blame, it’s killing him.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’ll convince him it’s not his fault. Somehow.’

‘Why are you protecting me?’

Stephen released her arm and laughed. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I’m doing it for Dean. And if you give a shit about that kid, you’ll drop it. The last thing he needs is you spilling your guts. He needs space, not you messing with his head.’

Lou grappled with the meaning behind Stephen’s words. ‘Would you and Dean be better off without me? Is that what you’re saying? Do you want me to move out?’

Say no! Make me a cup of tea and hug me and tell me everything’s going to be ok. Be my big brother too.

‘Do what you want, Lou. You always bloody do.’

Stephen pushed past her and made his way back up the hall. Lou stared after him. For the second time in two days, one of her brothers slammed a door on her. Worse than that, was the fact Stephen was right; she couldn’t take Dean’s pain away without hurting him still further and making Stephen hate her more than he already did. What kind of fool would think a shepherd’s pie and a few baubles could fill the chasm she had driven through their lives? She grabbed her coat and let herself out of the front door.

Out on the path, Lou hunched her shoulders to the crisp morning air and pushed through the gate. Ignoring the children laughing as they built a snowman on the green, she hurried down the alleyway at the end of the road and headed for the single place she could guarantee to be alone. She ran up the steps of the footbridge, her trainers slipping on the icy concrete as traffic hurtled through the freshly sprayed salt on the motorway below.

It had been a long time since the Council had sent anyone to lock the gates of Hill House. For years, the single track, dead-end of a road on which they opened had been a dumping ground for battered sofas, stained mattresses, and bin bags spewing rubbish on to the pavement. The snarling dogs on the posters warning trespassers to keep away had long since been silenced by graffiti. Only the rusty barbed wire wound around the top of the gates served as a reminder that someone had once cared enough to protect this place.

Lou eased through the gap created where the gates had collapsed on to each other. At least here there was nobody to hate her. Nobody she could do harm to without even trying. Wiping the wet hair from her face – she should have worn a hat; she’d catch pneumonia, not that anybody, including her, would care – she made her way slowly along the path towards Hill House. Even at a distance, Lou could see that frost had turned the metal grilles covering the windows of the ground floor white, like the bloom on chocolate past its sell by date. Icicles hung from the random shards of glass clinging resiliently to the sash frames of the unprotected windows in the floors above. She may have a bellyful of guilt, but the sad beauty of the three-storeys of weathered Portland stone, decorated by nature, still had the ability to take her breath away.