The reception area smells of cabbage and piss and sweat and abject despair. Thankfully I have to wear a face mask anyway.

“Mrs. Patterson does not receive visitors,” the woman on reception tells me curtly.

“It would be very helpful if I could see her.” I flash my winning smile, which normally opens doors. This time, concealed behind my pale-blue fabric face mask, it fails me utterly.

“She does not receive visitors,” the woman tells me again. “Too many of your type over the years have come sniffing around. Even more so these past few months.”

“My type?” I ask.

“Journalists and the like.” She waves her hand at me like she is swatting a fly. “Nasty little lot who want a piece of the circus.”

“I’m not a journalist. I’m a lawyer. I could get a court order to speak to her if I need to, but that just seems like an unnecessary faff, doesn’t it?” I try my best “come on and be reasonable” voice, but she remains impassive.

“Get a court order if you need to. But it won’t do any good anyway. Barely spoken a word since her daughter’s murder. Such a waste.”

“You won’t let me have just a few minutes? Even if I ask very nicely?”

“You can’t come in the house.” She shrugs and turns away. “I’ll send her to find you outside,” she throws over her shoulder.

I walk laps around the grounds, waiting and watching. One eye looking for a woman who might be the twins’ mum, the other ensuring no naked lunatics can creep up behind me. In the end I am so preoccupied looking for crazies that I almost dismiss the woman who is shambling in my direction, painfully thin and looking a decade older than her fifty-five years.

“Mrs. Patterson.” She offers me a hand. “You were looking for me?”

There are deep lines on her face, scoured into the skin of her forehead as if she has spent all the years of her life wearing a permanent frown.

I decide to just be honest with her. Something tells me not to bother trying to play games. “It’s about Leah. She visits?”

“Megan, you mean. She’s the only one who comes.”

“That’s Leah, Mrs. Patterson,” I say gently.

“My daughter visits with her lovely new boyfriend. So much better than that husband of hers.”

“Mrs. Patterson. That’s Leah who visits.”

“Those girls always thought I didn’t notice when they swapped or pretended to cover for each other. They used to do it all the time, from when they were tiny to almost full-grown adults. Now,” she waggles a finger toward me, “I might not remember what I had for breakfast”—she pauses to giggle, and I see a flash of the stunning young woman she had been once—“but I know my daughter. And that man knows it too.”

“Man?”

“The lovely boyfriend.” She sighs in exasperation. “He loves my Megs. That husband used to call her Meggie and it made my skin crawl. Always knew there was something off with that one.”