‘Dad’s meticulous,’ Bex said. ‘Everything filed away in alphabetically arranged square-cut folders. If Kirsty went to a psychiatrist, he’ll have a file. And I know where to find the key to his filing cabinet. I saw when I spent that summer here.’

Bex walked across the room to an antique bureau, pulled out a false base from an inner compartment and fished out a key. She leaned over and unlocked an ugly modern filing cabinet. ‘Bingo.’

She opened the top drawer and flipped through some files. ‘God, here’s one on me.’ She fished out a slim beige file and opened it. ‘Letters. From Aunt Janet.’

Bex put the file on a leather-topped desk by the window and read from one of the letters. ‘Doing well. Better to keep her away from her sister. What the hell …’

‘Your aunt’s talking about keeping you away from your sister?’ I said.

Bex turned to me and frowned. ‘I heard her on the phone once saying that. I thought they wanted to keep Kirsty away from me. I always thought I was the bad one.’

She shoved the file down and rummaged again in the cabinet. Found another file. It was stuffed so full, she struggled to wrench it out with her bandaged hands. ‘Ow. This file’s huge.’

I suspected this was like with medical records: a fat file was not a good sign.

Bex sank onto the floor, put the file down and allowed the papers to spill out. I sat next to her, shifting my dodgy ankle to get comfy.

Words caught my eye on one of the papers: Callous and unemotional (CU). Non-responsive to punishment. Therapy likely to be ineffective.

I caught sight of movement at the window but when I looked up, there was no one there.

Bex said, ‘But Kirsty was always the golden girl.’ She rummaged through the papers. ‘My God, all these letters from psychiatrists. What was the matter with her?’

We scrabbled around in the paperwork for a few minutes and then Bex grabbed her phone and tapped a few keys.

She looked up at me, her face drained of blood. ‘I’ve just googled it.’

A thudding noise came from outside. A car door banging shut.

‘Shit, it’s Dad.’ Bex jumped up, hurriedly put the files back together, and stuffed them into the cabinet. ‘Come to the kitchen.’

We jumped up, raced to the kitchen and threw ourselves down at the table. A shadow appeared at the door. Tony Nightingale pushed it open and came into the room. He smelled of pig. ‘Oh, hello there,’ he said. ‘Terrible about Daniel. Do you have news on the investigation?’

‘It’s ongoing,’ I said. ‘We’ll keep you informed.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Coffee,’ Bex said. ‘I need coffee. And put some whisky in it.’

‘Yes, coffee would be great, thanks,’ I said.

‘Go into the drawing room,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll bring it through.’