‘Of course he does,’ she’d said, ‘but there’s no one to blame but me for my cowardice in not leaving Colin. And because I stayed, I ensured that Willow’s view of what constitutes a healthy relationship was skewed.’

‘It wasn’t cowardice,’ he’d said gently. ‘It took courage for you to stay, to put your children first. If anyone was a coward, it was Colin for refusing to seek help, for being too afraid to face his demons.’

‘But look where my decision to stay got Willow,’ she’d replied. ‘I gave her the example that if you were treated badly, you just took it on the chin. Quite literally.’

‘Willow may have subconsciously thought that was true,’ Ellis had countered, ‘but she came here today because she knew what Rick had done to her wasn’t right.’

‘But she ended up in a potentially lethal relationship because of me.’

‘No,’ Ellis disagreed. ‘The bastard who raped her did that. He destroyed her self-esteem and that’s the real reason she valued herself so poorly and allowed Rick to manipulate her. And maybe, to a lesser extent, it happened with other boyfriends in the past.’

‘Please don’t say that,’ Naomi had said. ‘I can’t bear the thought of her thinking she deserved so little in life.’

But wasn’t that what Naomi had done? Ellis thought now while staring into the darkness.

The more he thought of what had happened to Willow, the more he could feel his body fill with some primordial urge for revenge on the poor girl’s behalf, to track down the man who had raped her and after he’d dealt with him, he’d then deal with Rick.

The idea of them all being taken in by Rick’s act of civilised behaviour sickened Ellis. Although he hadn’t been taken in entirely; aspects of Rick’s behaviour had set tiny alarm bells ringing, but really no more than that. Not until Martha opened up to him in the car earlier that day. At the time, some of what she’d said had seemed highly improbable, like her suggestion that Rick might have deliberately killed that cat, but now Ellis could well believe it. A sadist in full sight, he thought with a shudder of disgust.

Knowing that sleep would continue to elude him in his present frame of mind, and doing his best not to disturb Naomi, he quietly eased himself out of bed. Just as quietly, he crept downstairs, taking his mobile with him on the off-chance he might be able to chat with Lucas. He suddenly needed to know that Lucas was all right. He’d move heaven and earth if he thought his stepson needed his help but didn’t feel able to ask for it. Sometimes it was too easy to accept a person was the way they were and never question it. Just as everyone had with Willow.

Potentially Lucas had a ton of issues that could affect his mental wellbeing – the death of his father when he was a child, his mother remarrying, and then, much later, his mother’s death – but just because he appeared to be okay with it all, that didn’t mean he was. Remembering the day of Rose’s funeral, when Lucas had spoken to Willow so candidly about his mother’s funeral, and in a way that Ellis had never before heard him speak, he promised himself that he should explore those feelings further with his stepson.