‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised?’ Renata continues. ‘Who do you think kicked you both when you fell out of the raft? I heard you two, plotting to bring down SoulShrink, huddled together in the garden like a couple of old women. I waited for this retreat for nearly three years. Three years!

‘I thought I’d never be happy again when Tom was sent to prison. I missed SoulShrink, Tom and Kate, and the way they made me feel. I went travelling, I did some voluntary work. I did everything I could to put myself back together but I was still so lost. I emailed Kate because I knew she was hurting too. She’d tried so hard to save Tom from himself, even harder than me. I was sitting next to her in the sweat lodge when she told Jenna to leave him alone.’

At this, Tom stops thrashing and lies still.

‘Yes.’ Renata turns her attention back to him. ‘That’s why Jenna left, because Kate was onto her. She wasn’t going to let her run away with you.’

‘Ngh.’ Tom shakes his head. ‘Nggh nggh.’

‘You can protest all you like, Tom. Jenna’s feelings for you weren’t real. It was all a game to her.’ Her expression hardens. ‘Do you have any idea how hard it was to get the others to stay in the lodge after you left? I had to do your job for you.’ She jabs at her chest. ‘It was down to me to complete the ceremony. I tried to do the right thing, but then people started screaming, saying Tim and Bessie had stopped breathing, and then they all rushed out. Kate was crying and you’d gone and then I saw her … Jenna … standing on the edge of the cliff, like nothing happened, like it was nothing to do with her. I was so angry. I was so angry.’ She rocks back and forth as her gaze darts, unfocused, around the room.

She’s reliving it, Fran realises. Renata’s standing near the stone circle and she’s looking out towards the sea, seeing Jenna silhouetted against the dying light. Fran stood in the same place, trying to imagine what caused her sister to leave the sweat lodge and head, not for the hotel, but to the windswept cliffs.

She glances at Tom. He’s stopped grunting and he’s staring at Renata with huge, haunted eyes. The only sound in the room is the steady beat of the mantlepiece clock; tick, tick, ticking, like a timer counting down a bomb.

‘She hadn’t learned her lesson.’ Renata’s whispery voice makes Fran shiver. She can’t bear to look at her anymore, with her taut pale face and her strange distant eyes. ‘She was going to go running back to Tom and I had to stop her. I had to use the rock. I hit her on the back of the head to protect Kate.’