‘The part about you being glad that she was dead?’ Pip replied.

Evelyn nodded.

Pip blew her lips out. ‘I wasn’t sure what to think, really,’ she said. ‘I heard a rumour that one of you had murdered the other, and I suppose for a moment I did wonder. The diary was quite ambiguous, but it could have been interpreted as an indication that you had killed her. It felt unlikely, though, especially after everything else that I’d read about your life and what kind of a person you are. I couldn’t imagine you as a murderer!’

Evelyn gave half a smile. ‘Jolly glad to hear it,’ she said.

Pip put her fingers to her face and tapped a nail against her teeth as if deciding what to say next. ‘There was one thing that I didn’t understand, though. If I’m honest, it really confused me.’ She was twisting her bottom lip between her fingers and looking straight into Evelyn’s eyes, clearly uncomfortable with what she wanted to say but desperate to say it all the same.

‘Go on,’ said Evelyn cautiously.

‘Well, I didn’t realise that you had left Scarlet with Joan,’ Pip began slowly. ‘The diary doesn’t say that. So I couldn’t understand why you didn’t seem to feel any remorse for what had happened. There was me, haunted by my guilt for my part in the death of a child, and yet you seemed to have none.’

Now it was Evelyn’s turn to be confused. Something prickled at the back of her neck as she tried to grasp exactly what it was that Pip was saying.

‘I’m not sure I follow,’ she said slowly. ‘Did you think I was responsible for my own child’s death?’

Pip lowered her eyes to the table and nodded her head. ‘Not exactly, but your three-year-old child drowned. I couldn’t understand how you didn’t seem to be feeling responsible for that, at least in part. From everything I read, I just assumed that Scarlet was with you when she died. But then there was nothing that suggested any guilt. I just couldn’t follow it.’

Evelyn considered what Pip had said carefully. Was she saying that she thought Scarlet had died though a lack of care on her part? She felt herself bristle, but then again, she supposed that without having all the pieces of the jigsaw it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to reach. But if that were the case, then it gave rise to a question of her own.

‘So, even though you thought I might have a degree of responsibility for what happened to Scarlet, you still wanted to spend time with me?’ she asked.

When Pip raised her eyes, Evelyn could see the tears welling up, her lip quivering.