‘Oh, don’t be such a drama queen. What difference does it make?’

‘What difference? My sister died here!’

‘She wasn’t your sister.’

‘For fuck’s sake! That doesn’t change anything! You left me in charge of a child when I was just a child myself. How could you do that?’

‘How was I to know you’d inject her? I never told you to do that.’

‘I panicked. I was on my own and she was having a hypo. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was ten! And you blamed me.’

‘Who else was to blame?’ A shrug.

‘You! You were to blame. Just as much as I was. You were the adult! I’ve spent all this time dealing with the fact that I killed my sister and never once did you try to help me or share the blame.’ I’m crying now. Angry, frustrated, long-held tears.

Something softens in her eyes. ‘Come on out of here, this room stinks.’ She reaches for me. ‘Come, I’ll get you a drink.’

I don’t accept her hand or touch her, but I follow her to the living room and sit on the armchair again. She hands me a whiskey in an almost-clean glass.

‘I don’t drink whiskey.’

‘It’ll help.’

To my surprise, I knock back half of it in one go and it does help. I want to be numb. I want oblivion. Cynthia sits on the couch, but perched at the edge now, hands clasped on her knees, waiting for my questions.

‘Why wasn’t I taken off you?’ I ask. ‘Surely it was negligence that a child died in your care?’

‘Ines sorted it.’

‘How?’

‘She felt that it would be … complicated to report the death. Because the birth hadn’t been registered here.’

‘What?’

‘She brought Lila home from Spain and I took over her care pretty much immediately. There was no need to register the birth here. I’m not sure it even struck Ines to do it. But it would have made registering the death complicated. And explaining why Lila was here and not with her.’

‘Oh, what happened to “it’s just a babysitting service”?’

She shrugs. ‘It wasn’t against the law. But it might have been hard to explain if people found out.’

‘You don’t say.’ I take another sip of whiskey. ‘What do you mean she “sorted it”?’

‘She arranged the burial. We did it on private property.’

‘Hold on, so there was no funeral? She’s not in a cemetery?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Jesus Christ. It’s like she never existed. Where’s she buried?’

‘In Rowanbrook. In Ines O’Brien’s garden.’

My legs are unsteady when I make my way across the hall outside her flat. I shouldn’t have had the whiskey; now I have to drive home. Shit. I can’t think straight. Lila, buried in Cora’s garden. Lila with no headstone, no cross, no name. Like she never existed. I’m trying to open the main door, but I can’t find the right button and now I’m rattling the handle as though that will help. I don’t notice the woman opening her door until she speaks.