‘Only she was saying such awful things—’ Maria really should stop but the need to absolve her son was overwhelming. ‘What’s going to happen?’ she whispered, knowing she needed Annie to take care of it.

Often David would ask her what Annie had been doing on the beach at that moment, how long she’d been there. Maria couldn’t tell him because she never did ask.

David had never liked the way Annie had looked after them since the day they’d arrived on Evergreen, and there was a time when that had been the one thing they’d openly argued over. Maria would see the glint of mistrust in his eyes when he questioned her about that dreadful night, but she no longer cared what he thought of Annie. By then they both knew that trusting her was all they had left.

PRESENT

Chapter Thirty-Two

I fumble Annie’s key into her lock, throwing the door open, crying out with shock when I see her standing in the hallway. She looks ghostly in her nightie, a candle flickering on a plate in one hand. Her eyes drift down my body and I see her intake of breath but she doesn’t comment as she carefully puts the candle to one side and reaches for my coat, gently peeling it off me.

‘I was worried about you,’ she says, shaking it on to the doormat before hanging it on an antler. ‘I came downstairs and found you gone. Where have you been?’

Annie slowly bends on to her knees and begins lifting up one of my legs so she can take off a boot. One by one I allow her to do this, before she carefully lines them up by the door. It’s an effort for her to push herself up again.

‘I’m running you a hot bath.’ She turns, gripping on to the banister as she climbs the stairs, then disappears around a corner at the top.

Still I stand rooted to the doormat, silent, streaked in sick and soaked through to my skin. She appears again with a thick grey towel in one hand. ‘Remove your clothes,’ she demands and I glance down, finally taking hold of my top and lifting it over my head.

When I am undressed to my underwear Annie wraps my shivering body in the towel and leads me up the stairs. When we get to the top I stop on the landing. ‘He said my mum killed Iona.’

Annie draws a deep breath, biting down on her lip, before finally releasing it and manoeuvring me towards the bathroom.