‘She came back a different person,’ Guy said. ‘It was like somebody had flicked a switch inside her. She became wild. Unpredictable. Staying out all night, not telling us where she was, hanging out with all kinds of people, dangerous characters. And when she did interact with us, she became so emotional. She made all sorts of crazy accusations. Wild imaginings.’

‘Like what?’ Mark asked, but Guy brushed this aside.

‘It doesn’t matter what. I tell you this just so you understand what we were dealing with. It was very upsetting – for us, for Corinne. For our neighbours and friends. It was like having this ticking time bomb in the room – you would never know when it would go off.’

‘We tried to get her to seek help,’ Valentina told them, ‘making appointments for her with a therapist, but she wouldn’t turn up. She disappeared for days at a time, coming home, bruised and filthy. Her clothes ripped. Cuts all over her body. Sometimes she took Corinne with her and that really frightened us. Corinne is so young and impressionable. We worried what might happen to her. These people Anouk had made friends with, they were not good people.’

‘It became too much,’ Guy said, shaking his head. ‘We knew she was a danger to herself, but also to Corinne, who had always looked up to her older sister, but now she was completely obsessed. Corinne lost interest in school, in her friends. All she cared about was Anouk, doing whatever it was Anouk demanded of her, no matter how outrageous these demands became. Anouk was out of control and she was dragging Corinne with her. It could not go on. No parent wants to see their child taken away and put into one of those hospitals. But what was the alternative? Just sit around and wait until one of them got hurt, or killed?’

‘I can’t imagine it,’ Abi said, shaking her head, ‘all that you’ve been going through.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Mark asked, and he noticed the crease in Valentina’s forehead, the almost sheepish way her expression changed.

‘It’s been very hard for Corinne,’ she explained, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. ‘She loves her sister so much. When Anouk went into the hospital, Corinne couldn’t accept it.’

‘It was her way of coping,’ Guy interjected, and Valentina nodded quickly.

‘She kept talking about Anouk as if nothing had happened to her. As if everything was just carrying on as normal. She even invented this idea of Anouk being away at college.’

‘And you just let her go on making this stuff up?’ A little incredulity crept into Mark’s voice, and Val heard it. Flint entered her stare.

‘Perhaps you think it is my fault, hmm? Always the fault of the mother?’

‘No—’

‘What could I do? Shout and scream at her? That would only have pushed her away and I had already lost one daughter.’