‘You came back,’ Alice said, emerging from the shadows.

‘Go on,’ Lou said, without looking up.

‘Are you ok?’

She felt Alice’s eyes search her face.

‘Don’t waste this chance. Fight for Edward and never let him go.’

‘I promise I will, if he’ll let me. Are you sure you’re ok? You don’t look right.’

Lou covered her eyes. ‘Just go, before I change my mind.’

‘Is there a message? Something I can take back with me? I know what it’s like to leave without saying goodbye.’

The thread connecting Lou’s soul to the soul inside that house gave a tug so hard, she felt it pull at the centre of her chest.

‘There is one thing,’ she said.

‘Anything.’

‘Charlotte needs your protection. Do whatever you can to keep her away from George Caxton. I can’t tell you why; it might put your position in Hill House at risk. Just know that there is real danger to Charlotte from George Caxton. There is real danger to any woman from him.’

‘I’ll do whatever I can, I promise. And, Louisa, I’ll never forget what you’re doing for me. You don’t know it, but you’re saving my life.’

Alice smiled nervously. She shrugged off Lou’s parka and handed it to her. ‘I suppose I should see if Hill House wants me, then.’

Lou nodded. She watched Alice walk slowly to the gates. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath and stepped across the boundary. Lou waited. What if she’d got this wrong? It was possible that Alice was still there, just beyond the gates, rooted to the spot after failing to go back, because Hill House didn’t want her. Alice wasn’t the one.

A memory came rushing back to Lou. The text from HR had said that she had until 2 January to return to work. That had come through Hill House, hadn’t it? She still had a week.

Lou ran through the gates. Her trainers skidded on gravel. By the light of the streetlamps out on the pavement, she saw that the drive was empty. Alice had disappeared. Hill House crouched at the end of the drive. The window above the front door was dark. No shadow looked down on her. Hill House had given her up. It was over.

Lou sank to her knees. She had failed. Her promises to help the Mandevilles lay in tatters in that shell of a house. She should never have gone to Tom’s room. If she hadn’t, there might have been a chance for him and Emma. She had offered herself to him on a plate. Of course he had accepted. Any man would have accepted what was so easily given. She felt again the sensation of skin against hot skin, the taste of lips, the stroke of fingertips, the realness and wholeness of a man wanting her as much as she wanted him.

Struggling to her feet, she fell through the gates, tripped over a bag of fly-tipped rubbish, and stumbled up the steps of the footbridge, down the alley and along the road.