Saskia lets the rich coffee trickle down her throat. She closes her eyes for a moment and imagines the caffeine entering her bloodstream, like a personal trainer shouting motivational quotes to the rest of her sluggish body. Last night started as a civilised kids’ tea at Emily’s, but gradually morphed into dancing around her kitchen until the early hours, the children collected by tight-lipped husbands at some hard-to-pinpoint moment during the proceedings. The ramping up had been Saskia’s idea of course. Partly as content for her Instagram story, but mostly as a way to punish Beth for rejecting her yet again.

She couldn’t believe her eyes yesterday, looking out of her living room window and seeing that hulk of a woman merrily let herself into Beth’s house with Martha and Ava in tow. Just because Saskia didn’t offer her services, doesn’t excuse Beth for ghosting her. Saskia had checked her phone straight away in case there was a missed call, evidence that Kat wasn’t Beth’s first choice for comforting Ava after her harrowing experience, but there’d been nothing, not even a text. Once again, Beth had chosen to entrust her children to her new dog walker rather than her best friend, even after Saskia had been the one to save Ava from whatever misdeed that man was planning. (Surely the school would have told Beth that?) Well fuck her, Saskia had thought. Being born in poverty generally corresponds with being raised without morals. She’d quickly banished that thought and then mentally sworn at her parents for indoctrinating her with their judgemental views.

Beth and the girls had also been invited to Emily’s tea party (naturally), but no one had been surprised when they didn’t show up. While there had been no official word from the school, news of the intruder had spread like wildfire, and the mums had been gossiping about the incident in Emily’s kitchen. Vitriol for the school (how the hell could their security be so lax in this day and age?) and sympathy for the children affected (apparently Ava Packard got the brunt of it, poor darling, and after Beth had been such an angel with people like him). Saskia had also found out that the school had let Mark get away, which meant he was still out there, able to continue stalking Beth and her family. In fact, perhaps it was that discovery, her scuttling off rather than making sure he was apprehended, that persuaded Saskia to open another bottle and tell Alexa to turn the volume up.

‘Another coffee, Saskia?’