She stayed where she was and pulled her quilt up to her chin. His closing comment had hit home, burrowing beneath her skin like a thorn she couldn’t get a needle to. Yesterday morning, when she’d been sleep-deprived and poorly and floundering out of her depth, she’d thought that destroying any chance of a relationship with Rosie was best done brutally. Let Rosie hate her and be relieved to walk away. With the benefit of hindsight, however, though Jem still agreed with her reasoning, she cared too much for Rosie to leave her without an explanation. No matter what she’d said to assure Rosie, she knew Rosie would be blaming herself, and that was the last thing she wanted.

Snarling in frustration, she threw off the quilt and stomped into the bathroom. She would have a shower and something to eat, and take her meds. She really should phone her dad and text Harriet, and then, when she had run out of ways to procrastinate, then she might feel brave enough to speak to Rosie. Sitting on the side of the bath with the shower running as hot as it would go, she waited for the room to warm and let the first tendrils of steam dismantle the wall in her chest.

* * *

The house on Cedar Road had fallen quiet, its hush broken only by the creak of floorboards and the rap of cupboards closing. It always seemed strange to Rosie that she was allowed to enter someone else’s home and search its most private places, leafing through diaries and opening bedroom drawers, tossing out underwear to ensure nothing had been concealed beneath the faded, well-worn knickers and the lacy matching sets reserved for special occasions.

The house hadn’t been quiet when she first walked in. The TAU had escorted Adrian Peel’s wife back into the living room, where she’d sat in the centre of the sofa, her arms around her children, and continued to protest her husband’s innocence. The daughter, dressed for school and wide-eyed with bewilderment, had still been clutching half a crumpet, while the son typed on his mobile phone and scowled at anyone who came near him. They were all on their way to Clayton now, to be interviewed once lawyers and social workers had been arranged.

“I wonder if the lad was the one who caught the footage online,” Rosie said to Kash as they each chose a side of the master bedroom and began to process it. “The only time he showed any emotion was when Steph confiscated his phone.”

Kash crouched by the mirrored dresser, out of sight apart from his dark hair bobbing in the reflection. “We’ll find out soon enough,” he said. “It’ll all be on his internet history. Going off his reaction, I don’t think he was convinced by his dad’s ‘I was just buying a poor waif some chocolate’ cover story.”