‘I had to wait while some old bag took my daughter into the kitchen and interviewed her about her mum!’ Leanne started pacing up and down the lawn, an anxious Nesbit trotting up and down alongside her. ‘Pretending it was just a normal thing, like all kids have someone randomly show up and start interrogating them on what meals they eat and whether Mummy ever drinks too much and starts acting funny. This is Joan, not some four-year-old. She knows that someone reported me for not taking care of her. How do you think that’s made her feel?’

‘It’s horrendous.’ I breathed an internal sigh of relief that I’d helped Joan clean up a few days earlier. The cottage was still a chaotic mess, but at least it wasn’t a health hazard.

‘I am hanging on by a thread here, Ollie. By a thread. One bad break away from snapping. And for someone to be that malicious, that spiteful…’ She stopped pacing and collapsed into a chair. ‘To go behind my back like that. I felt ashamed, at first. Guilty. And don’t get me wrong, I’m so angry I could spit. But most of all, I feel hurt.’ She blinked both eyes, hard. ‘I feel like someone I know – and if it’s not you then I’m sorry for calling you a bitch, I hope you understand I was raging – someone smiled to my face and then stabbed me in the back. Stabbed Joan in the back. I hate them for that.’

‘It wasn’t me. I promise you it wasn’t.’

‘Any ideas about who it was, then?’

‘No.’

‘Go on, then, ask me.’ Leanne stubbed her cigarette out on the arm of the chair, then dropped it into a plant pot, before immediately lighting another one. ‘I know you’re dying to hear the outcome.’

She was right, I was itching to find out.

Leanne let out a shaky sigh. ‘She’s not taking it any further. Whoever snitched on us can stick their allegations up their arse.’

‘Oh, that’s so good to know.’

‘Yeah. Also good to know that someone out there thinks I’m an unfit mother.’

‘Please believe that I knew nothing about this.’

She leant back, closing her eyes. ‘Yeah, well, I kind of have to, seeing as school summer holidays start tomorrow and I’ve just told that snotty cow you’re helping out with childcare.’

‘I’m so sorry this happened.’

‘Not half as sorry as whoever did it will be if I ever find out it was them.’

I looked at Leanne, face etched with fear, fury and devastation, knuckles white where they gripped the arms of the chair, and I knew this was no idle threat.