‘What? Rachel, no!’ Luke seemed offended. Upset, even. ‘Why?’

‘Listen to me, you romantic sap. How often have I told you that if an addict doesn’t lose something, they’ve no incentive to change?’

‘Right.’ But he didn’t like it.

‘In fact, if—and it’s not going to—but if I ever relapsed, you couldn’t stay with me.’

‘But what if I wanted to?’

I laughed. ‘You wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t be me. And you wouldn’t be helping me, you’d be doing the very opposite.’

He shook his head. ‘This is all very tough love. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.’

*

When I cracked Bronte’s timeline, I was so gleeful, I literally rubbed my hands together. As soon as we were back in group after lunch, I launched in.

‘Bronte? You were happy to see Freya?’

She lit up. ‘I was bouleversée!’

‘What-ee what-say?’ Dennis asked.

‘French word,’ Chalkie said. ‘Means “bleedin’ delighted”.’

‘I adore her,’ Bronte said. ‘I adore all three of my children.’

‘So how do you reconcile being a loving mother with using heroin?’

‘But they weren’t there.’ She sounded surprised. ‘They were away at school. I never took drugs around them.’

Really? Well, maybe. It fitted with Freya’s version of events. ‘When you got married you—for the most part—stopped using heroin? But you began again about six years ago? Yes? Why?’

‘I’m not really sure…’

‘Your youngest child is thirteen? What age was he when he went to boarding school?’

‘Seven.’

‘Which was how many years ago?’

‘…Six.’

I let that sit with her for a while.

‘Eden sent you to rehab five years ago? And you got clean and stayed clean, until eight months ago? Yes? Before you broke your ankle, how were you doing with your life? Was anything different? Any changes? Big or small?’

She widened her eyes. ‘Not that I can remember.’

‘Let’s track back. It was June when you had your accident. What else was going on last June?’

‘Mmm. Most of the dams had foaled—’

‘Anything going on with your children? Freya? She’d done her A Levels, left school and come home? For how long?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘You had expected her to stay for longer?’

‘I thought she was home for good. To study Equine Science at uni in Dublin.’

‘So what happened?’

Bronte’s face became pinched. ‘Eden got her an internship in a bank. In San Francisco. It came as a huge shock to Freya. And to me. When her year in the bank ends, instead of going to uni in Ireland, he says she’s reading economics in Durham.’

‘How did you feel about that?’