‘Leave him here with you two maniacs?’ says Liberty. ‘I’ll be with him until the end. No matter what.’ She staggers to the door, legs impossibly skinny under Skywalker’s weight. ‘I hope you two are very happy together.’

I watch Liberty walk sideways down the stairs. A moment later, she’s on the moat bridge. I see her through the turret window, long body heading into the trees, half walking, half stumbling with Skywalker in her arms.

‘Happy?’ I ask Michael. ‘Now you’ve destroyed me completely?’

‘I’m never happy,’ says Michael. ‘But today I’m something like content. Having you home again after all this time.’

‘So what happens when Diane comes back? I hear she took a plane today.’

‘Yeah, another trip abroad. More handbags.’ Michael scratches his chin. ‘I’m not worried about Diane. I’ve got pretty good at clearing up messes. She won’t even know you were here.’

‘How can she not have seen through you by now?’

‘Don’t make me out to be the bad guy,’ says Michael. ‘It was you who started this war. You took my daughter.’

‘She’s your daughter in name only,’ I say. ‘What kind of life would Liberty have had with you? You lost your mind when she was born. Having something real blew your image apart. It sent you mad. How could you have taken care of her?’

‘Will you shut up, Lorna? For the love of God. Jabbering away. What happened to you? You were so much quieter before.’

‘I want to see Liberty walk out that gate.’ I go to the window.

‘You know, once upon a time I thought you were perfect,’ says Michael. ‘You did everything I told you. But then you ruined everything. You were one big lie.’

‘I wasn’t a lie. I was obedient. But I grew up pretty quick the night you threw a baby into my arms. Why did you do it, Michael? Why did you let Annalise give birth, then take her baby away?’

‘I wasn’t going to leave the baby with her birth mother, was I?’ says Michael. ‘No – you had to be the one to take care of her. You were an extra-marital affair but at least you were over sixteen. If people thought the baby was yours, PR could do damage limitation. A crazy one-night-stand groupie pregnancy.’

‘You’re disgusting,’ I say. ‘You kept a pregnant fifteen-year-old a secret in that horrible, half-built cottage for months. You let her give birth out there alone. All to protect your image. And when she tried to run away—’

‘Look, it was her own fault,’ says Michael. ‘She wouldn’t get an abortion. And then she blabbed to you about the pregnancy. What did you expect me to do with her? She was a ticking bomb.’

‘If you wanted her out of the way, why not just kill her before she gave birth?’