‘I didn’t watch,’ she says, placing her hands on the table in front of her. ‘I was … I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You watched her die,’ I say bitterly. ‘You did nothing.’

‘I called the emergency services,’ cries Barbara.

‘Not till it was too late. She only had a couple of minutes, Barbara. You were just scared of them implicating you.’

A sob slips from her throat and she puts her head in her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Margaret. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘“Sorry”. You don’t know the meaning of the word,’ I say. ‘How can you have been sorry when you sat down and wrote that poisonous email? When you told me I was to blame for my daughter’s death?’

I look at Julia. She has tightened her grip on the knife.

‘They told me you would be placed with a good family,’ I say, trying to make her look into my eyes. ‘They told me that you would go to someone who would give you everything I couldn’t.’

‘They say a lot of things, social workers,’ says Julia. ‘And in my experience it’s usually lies.’

‘You have to believe me,’ I say. ‘If I’d known for a second that you were being mistreated I would have been there like a shot. I loved you with all my heart, Julia. I wanted you so much.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she says. ‘How can that be true when you gave me away the moment I was born?’

‘On the day of the accident,’ I say, speaking as steadily as I can through the rising pain in my chest, ‘I was going … I was going to meet your father, or at least I thought I was. But the only reason I agreed is because I wanted to talk about you. He was the only person who could possibly have understood what it felt like to lose you.’

‘I thought you said he wanted nothing to do with it?’

‘No, not at the time,’ I say. ‘But he was an eighteen-year-old boy who just wanted to get back to university and have fun. I thought that with age and experience he might have changed. I thought the fact that he wanted to meet must mean that he wanted to talk about it too. But I was wrong, wasn’t I, Barbara?’

I turn round. Barbara is busy pouring herself another brandy. She looks up and then I see it again: Barbara running away from the scene, her red coat disappearing into the trees.

‘Tell me why you did it, Barbara.’