‘You’re perfectly safe,’ Tom assures her.

‘Is Kate coming in?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Never mind.’ She closes her eyes.

‘Okay,’ Tom says softly. ‘With your feet flat on the floor and your arms resting lightly on your lap, tell me again about your regrets.’

Fran opens her eyes. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing I do.’

‘What isn’t?’

Fran shifts in her seat. The air in the room feels thick and cloying and she feels the sudden urge to escape to the fields surrounding the house. She wants to draw cold air into her lungs, listen to bird song and let the wind blow the fog from her brain. Or to get in her car and drive back to London with the windows open and an audiobook playing. But she can’t leave. If she has regrets now, how much greater will they be if she abandons her only hope of discovering what happened to Jenna?

‘I don’t like talking about my emotions,’ she says flatly.

‘Why is that?’

She sighs. It’s the incessant questioning she finds so very wearing. It’s like being poked repeatedly. Is that why he’s doing it? To illicit some kind of reaction? Well, she’ll save him the trouble and cut out the crap.

‘Because it confers power to the other person.’

‘Power?’

‘Yes. Of course. If someone tells me politics makes them angry, cancer stories make them anxious or remembering their childhood makes them sad, they are effectively showing me where their weak spots are and giving me the ammunition to hit them where it hurts. And, before you ask, no, that’s not something I would do.’

‘But some people would?’

‘Of course.’

‘Has that happened to you?’

She looks at him steadily. ‘Are you squeamish, Tom?’

‘Not really.’

‘Good. Let me share an analogy. I watched a documentary about ravens once. They stalked a ewe who was giving birth. The farmer was in a different field and the ewe was labouring and couldn’t run. As the lamb’s head was birthed the ravens pecked out its eyes. Even if it had lived it wouldn’t have been able to feed, because they also consumed its tongue.’ Tom presses a hand to his face in horror but Fran continues on. ‘The ravens attacked the lamb when it was at its most vulnerable and the ewe couldn’t protect it. A child sent to boarding school may as well be a lamb in a field full of ravens. No, not a field, a cage – because there’s nowhere to run. And you can’t fight back when you’re outnumbered.’

‘You were bullied as a child?’

‘Mercilessly. Bored children will always look for entertainment, and I was theirs. Tears delighted them, retaliation fuelled them and silence was the only weapon I had.’

‘You learned to suppress your emotions.’

She smiles wryly. ‘An arrow can’t pierce a house made of bricks.’