It’s just as I’m tucking him in that it happens. I’m pulling up the blankets, pressing them tight when my mobile buzzes in my trouser pocket.

I pull it out to see a new message waiting. A red circle on the text icon, blossoming there like a tiny drop of blood. From Alastair maybe? Or Marianne?

When I unlock my phone, the number is withheld, and the preview only shows blank space.

Charlie looks up at me sleepily, yet curious too. ‘What is it?’ he murmurs.

I shake my head as I swipe open the text. The bright white of the screen seems to light the whole room, like a spotlight, blinding. In its glare, the space around me upends. It feels like the phone is burning my hand. I stare down at my son, so small, so innocent.

‘Nothing,’ I tell him. ‘It’s nothing,’ I repeat. I manage to kiss him, switch out his lamp. Get out of his room and close the door behind.

I lean against the wall of the hallway, gasping. I can hardly bear to look at my phone again, but eventually I force myself to do it.

In the middle of the screen are seven stark words:

Jennifer Arden, I know what you did.

Chapter 19

I drop the phone and it bounces on the floor. I can’t breathe. My whole chest has gone tight, become a cage. The air wheezes in and out of my lungs. I stumble into the bathroom and wrench open the medicine cabinet, pushing aside boxes of plasters, packets of paracetamol, Sudocrem. A new toothbrush, still in its packaging, goes clattering to the floor. I scrabble in the cabinet and finally my fingers close round it. My inhaler. I shake it, close my mouth round its mouthpiece, push the button, inhaling, inhaling. It doesn’t seem enough, it doesn’t seem to help. I sit down on the stool by the bath, cracking my hip on the bathtub as I do so. I lean forward. I try to hear the sensible words in my head. Slow down, calm down, breathe, you can breathe. Gradually, gradually, the attack eases. Tiny airways open up again in my lungs, tiny slivers of air find their way through. I grasp the edge of the sink and pull myself to my feet, fumbling to turn on the tap. I cover my face with stinging cold water, filling my cupped hands again and again.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

Slowly, shakily, I lift the inhaler back into the cupboard.