‘No,’ she snaps. ‘It doesn’t.’

After a moment I say, ‘Because you and Iona had that argument?’

‘Just forget I said anything,’ she says angrily, and I turn my head to look out the window. I’m about to speak when she says, ‘Danny followed her once. When she left our house he followed her to the clearing by the cliff. She had to shake him off and lose him.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Danny.’

A picture of my brother springs into my head. His big hulking frame, his head always hung low as if he wasn’t looking where he was going. I never saw him like they did. To me he was just my brother: lost, but above all gentle. My heart sinks with pain that my brother could have done this, because it doesn’t make sense that he was capable of it. ‘It must have been an accident. Danny’s never hurt anyone.’

‘You’re defending him again,’ she cries. ‘Just like Mum and Dad always did. I don’t know what’s wrong with you all. Can’t you accept he’s not right and that he’s done something horrendous? He needs to be punished.’ Her voice rises and we hear a thump on the floor above us. Bonnie raises her eyes to the ceiling and her words are quieter when she says, ‘I haven’t told Harry. I’m not going to tell either of the boys, and Luke’s not here so he doesn’t know yet. Of course you’ll have to speak to Dad about it, that is if he hasn’t already been locked up too.’

‘Bonnie, we don’t know any of the details, you can’t start assuming—’

She storms over to the patio windows, her fists clenched tightly by her sides as she stands with her back to me. ‘I’m not speaking to Dad,’ she says. She is taut with tension, like a coiled spring about to burst. ‘I don’t want anything to do with any of it. I’m not going to let my family suffer.’

This is your family, I want to say, but she doesn’t see it like I do. While Bonnie can and will distance herself from them, I’ll be the one picking up the pieces and trying to put them together. Because this is the only family I have.

I rest my head on the back of the sofa, trying to make sense of those pieces. ‘If they did know, do you think that’s why Mum let Danny leave?’ I say.

‘I don’t know. Our family is screwed up.’

I can’t argue with that. ‘They must have thought they were protecting him, doing the right thing. Wouldn’t you do it for your boys?’ I ask.

‘Don’t even go there,’ Bonnie cries. ‘Don’t you dare compare my boys to Danny.’