‘Too bad you didn’t win.’

She furrowed her brow. ‘Joanie, that is a win.’

Then we heard our gate swing shut. We looked at each other. No-one ever came to our house.

‘Go and hide,’ Lou said.

This is the deal we have. If a stranger approaches the house I have to hide. It’s one of the consequences of Lou’s dealings with perverts. Occasionally her clients have appeared at the front door, but Lou is much more worried about the family members of victims. They’ve graffitied the house before, left threatening notes about how they’ll kill her and what they’ll do to her body.

I went to Lou’s room at the front of the house and peeked out from behind the curtains.

It was Julie Korsak. She had a smile plastered onto her face. She was carrying a plastic bag, clutching it with both hands.

Had she had a facelift? I couldn’t tell.

The bell rang. Lou padded down the hallway and opened the door. I stayed where I was.

‘Mrs Korsak?’

‘That’s right. And you’re Joan’s mother, aren’t you?’

‘More or less.’

‘In any case – I wanted to return something of yours,’ she said.

Lou reached for the bag but Julie, though she kept smiling, held onto it.

‘This was in my car,’ she said, showing Lou what the bag contained.

‘In your car?’

Julie nodded, and kept nodding like she couldn’t stop.

Lou snatched the bag. She closed the door in Julie’s face, then turned and walked straight down to the kitchen. I followed.

‘What was that about?’ I said. ‘What happened? Lou? Lou?’

She rounded on me, furious. She threw the bag at me.

It contained her perfume.

‘Idiot,’ she snarled, and I had a glimpse of what she must be like in court, eviscerating accusers as they sat quivering in the dock. ‘Don’t you see what you’ve done? You absolute little idiot.’

She picked up a glass and threw it into the shallow, dirty water in the sink. She threw it so hard it smashed.

For a while after that Lou and I weren’t speaking. And Aleks, at training, only spoke to me to issue a command or a correction.

‘What’s up his ass?’ Grace said, with her usual radar for drama.

I shrugged.

I was working on a new dive. A 5253B. A back two-and-a-half somersault with one-and-a-half twists, in the pike position. A difficult dive, but one I’d have to know if I ever wanted to join an elite squad. I’d been preparing it for a while, but hadn’t yet taken it up to the platform. In fact, I was beginning to suspect Aleks was holding me back on purpose; some kind of revenge for the trouble I’d caused.

One day, I told him I was ready. ‘I’ve been ready for weeks,’ I said.

‘I’ll tell you when you’re ready,’ he said.