‘He did anything I wanted him to – anything.’ Izzy’s voice is jubilant.

‘Like stealing knives?’

Izzy shrugs, a careless little gesture. ‘I gave him those, we needed them for the games.’

‘What games?’

‘Oh, you know.’ Then she shakes her head, ‘Actually, you wouldn’t want to.’

‘Tell me.’

Izzy unwinds gracefully from the chair to stand at the open window. Sorrel and the policewoman are on the lawn, throwing a ball for Noah. Poppy is sitting nearby leaning against Eve, whose head is lowered so she can’t see her face. The police siren is so faint it could be imaginary.

‘Tell me about the games,’ Grace says again, they might not have long.

Izzy turns and stares at her, triumph in her eyes. She’s deciding not to talk about the bruises and the burns, the cuts, those bloodstained little stones under the bed. Why would she? Silence is power, the last she will have for a while.

The shadows are growing longer on the lawn and darker under the trees where they emptied the little bottle of earth from Ash’s grave. The children troop back into the house; she can hear them in the hall.

‘Why Ash?’ Grace speaks softly. ‘Was he just another game to you?’

She didn’t expect an answer, but nor was she prepared for the expression on Izzy’s face, a flicker more than an expression, gone in a flash. A kind of impatience, but with herself, that look of regret people have if they feel they could have done better, given time. After all, she might have got away with it completely if Sorrel had died as she’d planned. They could have been playing upstairs right now: Izzy, Poppy, Charley and Blake, somewhere out of sight. She and Melly would be cooking supper. Eve, twice bereaved, might not have come, but she would have let Poppy have a holiday with her best friend. The kids are fine, that’s what she and Melly would have said to each other as they sipped wine in the kitchen, they’re just playing games. Grace shivers. The house is unheated; spring evenings are chilly and it’s starting to get dark. A police van draws up; a policewoman gets out with another woman in plain clothes, probably the social worker they’ve been expecting.

Later she stands with the children at the front door as Izzy is led away; Melissa follows with bags she must have hastily packed. Izzy looks round for her mother at the last minute and they get in the van together.

Grace didn’t get the answer to her last question – why Ash – that final piece of the jigsaw is still missing. Children are born barbarians, Eric had said, and need to be tamed. Melly had been powerless to tame anyone, but as Izzy said, they were all at fault; they didn’t notice anything; they didn’t have a clue.