I had re-established more contact with the Kemps over the past months, especially seeing the state Livy was in. I felt for them, disturbed as they were by her depressed listlessness interspersed with loud, over-excited behaviour. But now I could feel my civility slipping fast.

‘Where?’ I asked. ‘I’ll go and see her.’

‘It’s not that kind of hospital.’

‘What d’you mean?’ I was afraid of her answer.

She couldn’t meet my eyes. ‘She’s in All Saints.’

All Saints, the mental hospital on the north side of the city. Part of an old, forbidding complex of institutions: asylum, prison, workhouse, shoulder to shoulder, only separated from each other by high brick walls.

‘My God!’ I was horrified. ‘Why? I mean I know she’s seemed very overwrought at times, but surely things weren’t that bad?’

Speaking in a whisper, Elizabeth said, ‘We didn’t know what else to do. You’ve only seen a little of what she’s been like. Her behaviour has been horrible. I can hardly bear to think of it. She’s been going with men like a . . .’ She wrung her hands. ‘Alec felt he’d lost control of her. Just a little spell in there, he said, to bring her back to her senses.’ She began to sob quietly, her shoulders heaving.

‘Alec says, Alec says,’ I stormed at her. ‘Don’t you ever think or say anything for yourself, you pathetic woman? Or at least for your own daughter? He’s not God, he’s just a man, and a pretty unprincipled one at that.’

‘It’s not his fault,’ she cried, gulping and sobbing. ‘It’s all my fault. I am a pathetic woman. I am!’

‘What is the matter with you?’ I was inflamed, unable to see anything but my fury. ‘Don’t you realize how difficult it is to get someone released from a mental institution once you’ve had them certified? And you have, I take it?’

Elizabeth crumpled. I found myself looking down on the pins in her blond pleat of hair as she knelt in front of me. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know that. Help me, Katie. You’re so strong. As strong as he is. Help me. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Help you?’ I blazed at her. ‘Why should I help you? But I’ll do whatever it takes to help Olivia. And damn the pair of you – damn you!’

I turned and left her kneeling with her beautifully coiffured head pressed to the floor, weeping with harsh, broken sounds. My feeling at the time was that it served her right.

But I also shared with her a terrible sense of guilt. I’d seen for myself that things were not right with Livy and had done nothing. I was preoccupied with my own concerns, and also I simply didn’t know what to do. She had needed help – perhaps for a lot longer than I realized – and I hadn’t responded. What sort of friend could I call myself?

* * *