‘Why? Exactly. It’s something that really bugs me. It doesn’t make sense. Diane’s been saying the same. We’re so sorry and we just don’t know.’ She twists a section of her fringe. ‘I remember Christine from when you were a baby. I was very wee. She was lovely. I really liked her a lot. She sometimes looked after me.’ She sighs and squeezes Lauren’s shoulder. ‘She loved you very much, Lauren, don’t you forget it.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Well, she was quite unusual. She had this long hair that was’ – she laughs softly – ‘all over the place. She wore cool clothes. She liked things like this,’ she says, nodding towards the candles. ‘Like candles. And I remember once I had a headache. She put her hands on my head, like this.’ Ann-Marie puts her hands over the crown of Lauren’s head, her fingers joining at the hair parting, the heels of her hands pressing Lauren’s temples. ‘Then she lit a candle and got rid of bad energy with her hands.’

Lauren feels a slow burn of anger that she tries not to show. ‘How?’

‘By moving them around and throwing away the bad energy, getting it away from me. It made me feel calmer – relaxed and not so anxious and in pain. She made me laugh doing it; it was like a game. I remember her being a very warm person, your mum.’

Lauren’s eyes are huge in her face.

‘Maybe you should talk to Vairi about her. Vairi was good friends with her.’

‘Vairi?’ Lauren asks.

‘Yeah, I know. She doesn’t seem like the friendliest person at times, does she? But she believes in some of the same superstitions that your mum believed in. My mum says they used to cook together.’

‘What did they cook?’ She feels detached and as if she wants to be back at home.

‘I don’t know – you should ask Vairi. I’m sure she’ll tell you. She was nice though. I remember this one time, at the beach. It was really cool.’

Lauren feels a dark wave pass through her.

‘We were walking the dog, drawing in the sand and stuff. Then Christine told me to stay still and close my eyes. When I opened them, she had drawn a circle around me, and covered it with rocks, pebbles, seaweed and shells. She said it was a special circle, called a cairn. No, wait, a “caim”. It was giving me power to, like, protect me.’

‘Protect you from what?’

‘I don’t know. It was just, like, magic stuff. Superstition. Protect me from bad spells. Bad witches. Bad people.’

Lauren picks some dirt out of one of her fingernails and doesn’t look up. She wants Ann-Marie to stop bothering her.