She felt hopeless as she returned the harp to its place and left the room. How could she deal with this if she couldn’t play?

She found herself in the kitchen, switching on the kettle. There were a few crumbs on the top of the stove, and she went to find a cloth. And then she saw that some of them had ended up around the kettle itself, and behind the bread bin. Niall had always had an expressive way of cutting bread, one that littered the kitchen with detritus.

She started to move things onto the table so the surfaces were clear enough to wipe properly, and, once she started, it became difficult to stop. She took out sprays and gloves and cloths, and began to clean away every trace of dirt. She moved from the surfaces to the floor to the fridge. The oven. The utility room.

Her thoughts narrowed themselves down to finding the next imperfection and removing it. And, in spite of half hating herself for it, she began to feel comforted at last.

Hanson was now very much on edge. With the Jaguar gone, she felt as though something else had to happen. She’d expected the other driver to either follow, or move again. But the car remained motionless. A full hour passed, and then most of another.

The lack of action was excruciating, not just because her car was now freezing cold. She was at the point of going to see who was in the bloody Corsa when there was movement at last. The driver’s door opened, flooding the interior with blue-white light, and a figure stepped out. One who was huddled in a scarf, hat and high-necked coat, and was frustratingly hard to make out. She couldn’t even guess their gender.

Hanson picked up her phone and started to take photographs, willing them to turn towards her. The figure made its way over to number eleven, and Hanson climbed out of her car as quietly as she could to follow. Her breath fogged in the freezing air as she trod carefully along the pavement. She paused at the end of the drive, in sight of the Reakeses’ front door.

The figure was now on the doorstep, and she could hear the bell chiming from here. She could also see Louise Reakes’s face clearly as she opened the door.

‘You know who I am,’ Hanson heard.

28

You know who I am.

Five words that fed into all the mass of uncertainty and fear Louise had been feeling, and sent her heart rate into overdrive. She didn’t want to know what he had to say, this crumpled man on her doorstep. She didn’t want to know anything more about the awful things she’d done.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I need to go to bed. Please …’

And she started trying to close the door, but he was pushing against it.