She heard them then, thundering up the stairs, shouting ‘Police’, and then they were in the room and they were asking questions and radios were buzzing and Tom was talking and Kate was groaning and still Renata wouldn’t look at her. Someone placed their hand on Fran’s arm and she swatted at it irritably. Then it was on her elbow, angling her away, moving her away from Renata, shifting her out of the room, telling her everything was going to be okay. She wanted to scream, to hit out at the man with his hand on her arm, to tell him that her sister had been murdered, that she’d never get to see her again, never say she’s sorry, never put things right. She couldn’t speak for crying.

‘It’s okay,’ the police officer said, ‘it’s okay.’

But it wouldn’t be okay. It would never, ever be okay.

Jenna was dead.

‘Let’s get you to the hospital,’ the policewoman says now.

Fran shakes her head. ‘No. I don’t need—’

‘We need to get you checked over. Check that blow to your head, see if you’ve got any other injuries.’

‘I’m fine,’ Fran insists. ‘I just … I just want to go home.’ A thought hits her and she sits up straighter. ‘I need to go back to the retreat. My bag’s there and my house keys. And my phone. I need to—’

‘We can take you back there afterwards,’ the policewoman says. ‘But it’s really important that—’

‘Kate’s the one who needs to go to hospital, not me.’

The living room door is shut but she’d watched through a gap in the blinds as Kate was carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance by two paramedics. Tom traipsed behind them like a broken man. Following him was a uniformed officer and a grim-faced detective in a suit.

‘As well as getting you checked out,’ the policewoman continues, ‘we’ll need to take some photos, professional ones, of your injuries, and then we need to get a written statement.’

Fran looks impassively at her wrists, at the twisted red skin she only noticed when one of the officers took out a camera and asked her to show him her hands. He photographed them from every angle then did the same with her ankles, her face and the back of her head.

‘It’s all evidence,’ the police officer says. ‘You were imprisoned and held against your will.’

‘Yes I know but—’ Fran stiffens. A uniformed officer has appeared between the gap in the blinds. Wedged between him and a colleague, with her hands handcuffed behind her back, is Renata.

The female officer follows Fran’s line of sight and gets up to close the blinds. As she crosses the room Fran gets up too.