She thought of Kitty and Lucy. Two little girls, both so innocent, walking in on that scene in the bedroom. The shock and the horror as they tried to comprehend what they’d seen: how could any child cope with something like that?

‘Emer?’ Kitty’s voice dragged her away from the horizon and back into the room. It had seemed so big when she’d first come in, but felt too small now because there wasn’t anywhere she could hide away and pretend none of this had happened.

She wished she’d never seen Kitty on the train that afternoon in June.

‘Are you okay?’ Kitty asked.

Emer shook her head, keeping her back to the room, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

‘Robert’s been like a father to me,’ she said. ‘I thought he really cared about me. But all this time, he’s been lying to me.’

‘He paid Mum and Dad to get rid of me,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m pretty sure they would have killed me, if they thought they’d get away with it. But maybe faking my drowning was an easier solution. No body, no evidence of any wrong-doing. Or maybe Dad realised, even then, that keeping me alive could be a way of getting extra money further down the line.’

‘Why involve Dad at all?’ Emer asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to keep him out of the picture?’

‘Robert was in love with our mother,’ Kitty said. ‘It suited him to get Dad out of the way at the same time. So he paid Dad to make both of us disappear. I didn’t want to go. All I wanted was to go to the Guards and tell them everything that had happened. But Robert threatened me. He said the people who’d been at the house that night knew I’d been there. He said if I ever told anyone what I’d seen, they would kill me. Not just me, he said they’d kill you as well. So he gave me a choice. Keep my mouth shut and you’d stay safe, or speak up and let you get killed.’

‘No.’ But she knew Kitty was telling the truth. The only person in her fucked-up family who hadn’t lied to her.

‘How did they get you out of the country without anyone noticing?’