Mrs. Sheppard returns and sits down next to her, holds her hand, says the same words over and over: You poor girl. You poor, poor girl. It’s all going to be OK. Jess can hear the horror in her voice, knows that what she is saying is not true. All Jess wants is her mum to be there, to hold her and stroke her hair. And with each passing second that she is absent, the panic grips tighter around Jess’s throat that perhaps something has happened to her too, perhaps her mum will never come to rescue her.

And then there are two police officers in the room—a man and a woman—though Jess has no recollection of them arriving. They are asking her questions but she cannot get their words to stick in her ears so she stares silently at her hands, watching them tremble, wishing that everyone would stop talking, that they would all go away. She senses Mrs. Sheppard buzzing around the room, sees the policeman scribbling into his miniature notebook, hears the policewoman speaking into the walkie-talkie attached to her shoulder. She wants them all to leave but knows she could not bear to be left alone with what is at the top of the stairs.

And then suddenly her mum is there, holding her tight as if fusing their bodies together. Jess feels the first hot tears burn her cheeks, feels the heat of her breath pressed against her mum’s chest, feels the air scorch her throat and char her lungs. She buries herself in her mum’s cotton blouse, not knowing whether she feels relief at her presence or dread in their collective horror.

She does not know how long they stand there, her and her mum, locked inside their shock and grief. She hears more people bustling in and out of the house but will not listen to their explanations of who they are and what they are doing because then she would have to acknowledge that this is actually happening. Instead, she clings to her mum, feeling as though she is adrift in a vast ocean and that tethering herself to someone else is her only chance of survival.

She senses Lily’s presence before she sees her.

And then her sister is standing next to them, and her mum is explaining what has happened, and Jess wants to clamp her hands over her ears, wants someone to take the words away and with them the pain. And when she hears Lily’s sharp intake of breath, when she hears it exhumed in loud, potent sobs, all she wants to do is scream into Lily’s face: This is all your fault. If you hadn’t said what you said, if you hadn’t done what you did, Dad would still be alive.

Fury weaves through Jess’s ribs and encircles her heart. She had thought she couldn’t hate Lily any more than she had at the beginning of the summer but it is as though her anger three months ago was nothing more than a dress rehearsal for the enmity now coursing through her veins.