She let herself into the empty house, crept up the stairs and crawled fully dressed into her bed. Curling into a ball, she held herself. But she couldn’t cry. Nothing felt real. Finally, exhaustion caught her in its grasp, and she slipped into a shallow sleep.

37

Lou woke, utterly disorientated, her insides stripped raw. With her face pressed into the pillow, she forced open one eye and took in her surroundings. The clothes hanging on the wardrobe door looked like they belonged to somebody else. The titles on the spines of the books on the shelves made no sense. The trinkets on the chest of drawers held no meaning.

Lou swung her legs from beneath the duvet and sat on the edge of the bed. Noises crept through the floorboards from the kitchen below. Pots rattled, plates chinked, the kettle rumbled to the boil. So, she had slept through what had been left of Christmas Day and night, missing Dean’s return and the chance to head off the inevitability of someone else telling him about Stephen’s arrest.

Leaving her room, Lou made her way downstairs, heading for the kitchen. But when she passed the living room, she double-backed. A Christmas tree stood beside the television. Not the wonky artificial tree they dragged down from the loft every year, but a real tree, in a fancy metal stand. The gold tinsel threaded through the branches, glittered in the bright white light of a string of fairy lights. New fairy lights. The mantelpiece was free of sympathy cards. In their place was a row of Christmas cards arranged around a little wooden Nativity scene. Dean could never have done this on his own. There were no shops open on Christmas Day for him to have bought a tree, and he wouldn’t have thought to buy a wooden Nativity scene.

Bing Crosby’s voice floated from the kitchen. Along with it came the unmistakeable scent of cooking. That definitely wasn’t Dean; he could just about heat a tin of beans without setting off the smoke alarm. Mum’s cousin, Shirley, must have taken pity on them and come bearing this tree and Nativity decoration, along with all the ingredients to cook their Boxing Day lunch. Preparing the words to thank her Auntie Shirley, Lou made her way back through the hall and pushed open the kitchen door.

Nothing in her life up to that point – not even the events of the previous week – could have prepared her for the person standing at the kitchen sink in a Father Christmas apron, peeling Brussels sprouts, humming along to “White Christmas.”

‘Morning, sleepyhead. Merry Christmas!’

Lou collapsed against the fridge, covering her mouth with her hand.

‘How’s Katie settling in with that lovely new husband of hers? Did you go to the Trafford Centre? I saw it on telly. All those designer shops – it looks wonderful.’

When Lou didn’t respond, her mum turned around. ‘I didn’t hear you come in last night. Was there trouble on the trains?’ She smiled over her shoulder as she cut a cross into the base of a sprout.