‘Seriously,’ Tom continues, ‘Kate’s done such a good job organising this retreat that it should run itself. I’ve got her itinerary and tomorrow morning’s group activity is all booked.’

Phoenix raises his hand. ‘What is it?’

‘Now there’s a question! Um … I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head but I suspect it won’t involve water.’

Fran cringes. Tom’s attempts to lighten the mood are hideous. A natural-born comedian he is not.

‘I may need some help at meal times,’ Tom adds. ‘Mostly so what’s served up at lunch and dinner isn’t burnt.’

Fran buries her head in her hands and groans quietly as Sophie, Emily, Priyanka and Peter all volunteer at once, swiftly followed by, ‘I’m happy to step down if there’s too many of us’ and ‘We pair up, take one meal each’ and ‘Is there any flour? I make a lovely quiche.’

As they continue to squawk and squabble, Fran gets up from her seat and leaves.

Fran pushes off her duvet and swings her legs out of bed. Someone’s turned the heating up to ‘incinerate all human life’ and her body is prickled with sweat. She unlatches the window and inhales the cool, clear air that billows into the room. Outside, a storm is brewing; trees are bending in the wind, a line of dark clouds scuttle across the dusky horizon and an eerie silence has replaced the chirping of birds.

She plucks at the neckline of her pyjama shirt and wafts it back and forth, letting the air get to her skin. It’s 12.35 a.m. She can’t have slept more than an hour and now she’s awake.

She found it almost impossible to drop off, and not just because Sophie/Emily’s over-salted bean casserole was churning in her stomach. There’s one day left of the retreat and she’s no closer to discovering what had happened to Jenna than she was the day that she arrived. She is fairly certain that her sister didn’t take her own life but that’s no comfort, and although Kate’s recordings prove how underhand she is, they’re not evidence that she murdered anyone. And now she’s gone, the one person who may have been able to shed light on Jenna’s fate. No Caroline either, the only person Fran can trust.

She moves from the window to the en suite, uses the toilet, then stares at her reflection in the mirror as she washes her hands. Her reflection looks as haggard and as exhausted as she feels. She thinks about her sister, and how she’ll never age; how she’ll always be thirty-seven. It still doesn’t feel real, Jenna being gone.