‘OK, OK,’ she sighs, as if dealing with a demanding toddler. ‘There’s no need for that, Anna. You don’t need to call anyone. But you look at her from the doorway – you don’t go in, and you don’t touch her.’ Fran turns, and I follow her up the narrow, twisting staircase to the top landing. She pushes open the second door, revealing a single bed, lit by a small pink nightlight. Ignoring every word she just said, confident that she won’t stop me, not if it risks waking Laurel, I take Bom from Fran’s arms and creep across the carpeted floor, leaning over the small bed to see Laurel’s sleeping face, her hair a bird’s nest tangle of blonde curls. I tuck Bom in next to her, as I’d done so many times at the house in South Oxbury and return to the doorway.

As I reach the top of the stairs, I look around, wondering where Polly is. The door to the room next to Laurel’s is tightly closed, but the one at the end of the landing is slightly ajar, and I see the edge of Fran’s dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. The door next to Laurel’s room is slightly open, revealing a glimpse of a bathroom inside, a bottle of Matey on the side of the bath.

‘You need to go,’ Fran whispers, ushering me down the stairs. ‘I should never have let you in here.’ I don’t remind her of the fact that she didn’t let me in, I forced my way in.

At the bottom I turn back to Fran, eyeing her closely. There is none of the stress I have seen etched into her face over the past few weeks – stress that I now know was from keeping her biggest secret ever, not from worry about where her daughter might be. Her skin is smooth and unlined, and the dark circles beneath her eyes have disappeared. I think of Dominic, dishevelled and unshaven, gaunt from sudden weight loss, and I know that Fran will be gone from here by the morning, Laurel too.

‘I have to tell the police, you know that, Fran, don’t you?’ I say, my eyes never leaving her face. ‘It’s the right thing to do. Dominic can’t spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn’t do.’

Fran’s eyes go wide for a moment, before she gives a soft laugh. ‘Oh, Anna, you silly girl. You really don’t know, do you?’

The air around us thickens for a moment, and I cock my head on one side, trying to figure out what she means.

‘I don’t know what?’ I say eventually.