‘I had wondered. I don’t know – he worked for you. I just thought you were friends.’

Jake gave an ironic laugh, shaking his head so that his thick hair shifted on his shoulders. ‘Friends? Not exactly. I think I’m Krish’s – resort. Refuge. He’s all over the place is poor old Krish. Olivia talked me into having him here to work, just like she more or less talked him into a place at college. Not that he’s not bright, but he didn’t get the right grades and it’s certainly not the course he would have chosen. Science is actually his thing. They turned him down and she appealed – twice. Wrote letters, went down there, crusading. Eventually they gave him a place at the last minute because someone else dropped out. That was all going on while he was working here. He was OK to have around, I must say.’ Jake looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘I wasn’t in too good a state myself at the time, and someone else working here was welcome. Otherwise I was alone all day, and up in the flat at night. I hadn’t done it up then either and it was grim. Krish can be a laugh when he’s not saying something crass or ridiculous.

‘Anyway, after a while he started talking, confiding in me. He found it very hard I think. It made him feel so disloyal to her. Since then I’ve been a sort of surrogate something-or-other to him. For some reason, I feel responsible for him, as if he’s a child.’

‘I suppose that’s how my mother felt about Olivia.’ Anna picked up an old Strepsil tin from the desk and fiddled with it. Something hard rattled inside.

‘Krish needs to get away from her. She’s got such a hold on him. It’s hard to explain. He’s terrified of her – the emotion she can work up. And the atmosphere there gets very weird at times with all her boys . . .’

‘The lodgers?’

‘Have you wondered why they’re all still there through the summer holidays? Olivia never has female lodgers. Always these boys. They come and go every few weeks or months, depending on how long they stay the course. Whether they react as required.’

‘Meaning what?’ Anna asked, not certain she wanted to hear the answer.

‘Well, it varies, I think. What she wants is for them to depend on her, to take over their lives. Did you see Ben the other night? She’s set herself up as mother confessor to him. The guru. From what I gather he’s got the most miserable family. Doesn’t want to go home. Ditto Sean. He’s the one in the biggest tangle with her, poor bloke. Like someone nailed to a log. Did you see the state of him? The reason he acts like a servant in the house all the time is because he gets his rewards later – if he’s been a good boy.’

Anna let out a gasp. ‘No – oh no. That can’t be . . . That’s horrible.’ She felt tearful. All her hopes of Olivia were sliding away so fast. ‘Not that – not still?’