I closed my eyes, held my breath and tried to imagine my parents. They were all I wanted to see, but no matter how hard I tried all I could conjure up was the face of the grandfather clock or the deep darkness of the hole in the back garden. And that was my final vision: blackness – a long black tunnel with no light at the end.

A tear hit my eyelid and I opened my eyes and flinched as she brought the knife down whip-fast and placed it on the ground beside my face. I frowned, confused and frightened, as she pushed herself off me. She didn’t look at me or say anything, just drifted away with limping steps towards the kitchen.

I raised my head off the floor, terrified to move in case she came back, but she walked into the room and closed the door.

I listened and listened and heard a drawer scrape open, heard a chair scrape across smooth, hard tiles. A moment of silence followed and then I heard her gasp. She gasped once more and then all was silent again. Nothing broke the quiet apart from the grandfather clock striking the hour.

Unable to believe it, I scrabbled to my feet, reached for the front door and stepped outside.

Chapter 53

It was the first sunset I’d ever seen. I sat in a police car and watched the sky through the open window. The sky was layered. At the top ran a light, brilliant blue layer. Beneath the blue ran a delicate lavender, followed by the most magical shade of light pink. It looked like someone had taken three brush strokes to the canvas above and painted the sky in three separate sweeps of colour. It didn’t look real. Sitting in the police car on the dirt road outside the cottage looking up at the sky didn’t feel real.

Olivia waved at me. She was being rolled past in an ambulance bed. I wondered if Mother had been telling the truth about Olivia getting her expelled. Knowing I would never know, I waved back.

The ambulance drove away. Policemen rushed around the cottage like giant ants. A policewoman stood in front of the car window, trying to hide the next bed that rolled past, but I could see the black body bag anyway. I knew it was Patrick. I had told a policeman where to look for him. I remembered my promise to find Patrick’s family and tell them what he’d done for me and Emma. Another ambulance approached and Patrick was put into the back of the huge vehicle and driven away.

‘You OK?’ the policewoman asked. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘I’m kind of starving, to be honest, so yes, please.’

She smiled. ‘I think I’ve got some crisps in the glove compartment. Hang on a second.’