She leads the way down a set of narrow stone steps to the large basement kitchen. It’s a dark cavernous room with only a small window above the sink to let in light. The walls are exposed brick and are covered with oil paintings of pastoral scenes. Barbara’s ‘other’ kitchen, the one she uses to entertain, is on the ground floor if I remember correctly. My mother had been so envious of it. This basement kitchen had been the staff quarters, though now it looks rather neglected. I suppose, with Harry gone, the days of Barbara’s elaborate entertaining are over. I haven’t been here since I was a child. I grimace as I recall hiding in the pantry down here during the games of hide and seek Ben and I used to play. I’d found the place oppressive back then and it feels even more so now as I sit down at the large wooden table.

‘You’ll have a cup of tea, Margaret,’ says Barbara as she lights the stove.

It’s more a statement than a question. I don’t respond. Instead I think about Julia. How can she have kept this from me, knowing the distress I was in? And her body language with Barbara just now was very strange; it was like she was scared of her.

‘Here,’ says Barbara, placing a tray of cups and a teapot on to the table. ‘Help yourself. I’m afraid I only have plain biscuits.’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Barbara,’ I cry, slamming my hand on the table. ‘I don’t care about bloody biscuits. Will you just tell me what is going on.’

Barbara’s face hardens. ‘What do you want to know?’ she says, sitting down on a chair at the far end of the table.

‘Well, I came here to confront you about the night of the accident and the fact that you were there,’ I say, my voice shaking with anger. ‘But then I arrive to find my doctor here, a person I thought was my friend, saying that you’re her landlord. I want to know what the hell is going on.’

‘As Julia told you, I am the owner of Larkfields,’ says Barbara, her voice measured.

‘But how?’ I cry. ‘When?’

‘We purchased it in 2009,’ says Barbara, raising her eyebrow. ‘And as for the reason why, I’m afraid it was Harry who dragged me into it.’

‘Harry?’

‘Yes,’ says Barbara. ‘He and your husband concocted the whole thing.’

‘But Sean didn’t know Harry,’ I say incredulously. ‘This doesn’t make any sort of sense.’

‘You’re right, he didn’t know him,’ says Barbara, narrowing her eyes. ‘In all the time you lived there neither you nor he made any effort to re-acquaint with your neighbours.’

‘Are you serious?’ I exclaim. ‘After everything that happened to me when I was a teenager you think I was going to be friends with you?’