She made her way up the stairs with a heavy tread. The two older women were still arguing, but softly now, in vicious whispers. Rolling her eyes at the ceiling, she went into Eileen’s room. What she found there shocked her to the core. Her sister was curled up on the floor, the quilt from the bed over her, a corner in her mouth pushed in as if to stop a scream from escaping.

‘Eileen, Eileen! Are you all right, love?’

Briony knelt down beside her, her face and voice concerned. Eileen stared from pale blue eyes, as if unsure of who she was.

‘It’s me, love, Briony. Are you all right, what happened? Tell me what happened?’

Eileen’s nose was running, and taking a hankie from her coat pocket, Briony wiped it gently. Then she pulled the quilt from Eileen’s mouth, wiping the spittle away.

‘I can’t take any more, Bri. They fight all the time, the two of them. Shouting at me and at each other. Joshua won’t leave me alone, see. He won’t ever leave me alone. Night after night. I don’t like it, Bri, I don’t like him. He’s nasty to me he is, makes me tell him things, and I can’t stand it.’

Briony looked down at her sister, her elder sister, and shook her head, trying to comprehend what was going on.

‘What do you mean, tell him things? What things?’

Eileen swallowed hard.

‘You won’t let on I told you? You mustn’t let him know I said anything, see. Because he said if I told anyone, he’d kill me.’

Briony screwed her eyes up and said, ‘Oh, he did, did he? Well, I won’t let on, darling. You tell me and I’ll see what I can do. How’s that?’

Eileen grabbed Briony’s hands in hers, relief flooding her face. Briony saw the fear there, and the worry. She felt an urge to take Joshua and throttle him with her bare hands for putting that terror there in the first place.

‘Come on, Eileen, you tell Briony. I’ll look after you.’

‘He made me tell him about us, Bri. About me dad, and Henry Dumas ... He knows everything. About the boy, about me dad, what I did to me dad. He says he’s going to tell the police. And he makes me do things to him. Awful things. I don’t know why he’s doing it. He was nice to me, Briony, always nice. He never hurt me before...’

She started to cry harder. Briony stroked the fine dark hair gently.

‘Come on, up you get, I’ll help you undress and put you to bed, then we’ll sort all this out once and for all.’