‘Okay,’ Corinne said, glancing behind her, as though regretful at having left early.

‘Was it you?’

‘What?’

‘Was it you who took the photo of me and Ross, leaving the house?’

Corinne looked down, avoiding Eva’s gaze.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘He’s not right for you. He doesn’t deserve you,’ she declared.

Eva stopped, overtaken by a wave of rage.

‘And Becca? Did you tell her about us? Did you tell her about my pregnancy?’

Corinne’s pace slowed and then stopped. Panic flashed across her face.

‘You did, didn’t you?’

Corinne whispered: ‘I thought it would help, if she knew.’

The doors behind them burst open, girls streaming out.

‘Help? Help who?’

‘You. Us.’ Desperation in her voice as she grasped for meaning. ‘I thought if she knew then there would be no chance of you staying with him. He is not good for you, Eva. You don’t need him.’

Around them: rushing and screaming, the wave of panic sweeping out on to the forecourt. Distantly, Eva thought: fire.

‘That little boy,’ Corinne said. ‘I didn’t know … Eva, I’m scared.’

The ground tilted. Eva was aware of screaming. She tried to make sense of the moment, to realize the full implications, but the question resounded inside her: ‘Why?’

‘Because I care for you! It is like we are sisters. Family!’

Words shakily spoken. An uncertain offering. An untrustworthy account.

‘Don’t you feel it too?’

A voice behind them, a strange shout. Beth. Eva hadn’t noticed, hadn’t seen until the last minute. The round O of surprise made by Corinne’s mouth. Her sister’s face ruddy and peculiar.

‘You didn’t even wait,’ Beth said, her breath wild. ‘You didn’t wait for me!’

Eva was reminded, then, of when they were little girls and she, the faster of the two, would run on ahead, mindless to anything but her own joy at the speed in her legs, the air whistling in her ears as she ran. And then Beth’s tears and recriminations when she caught up, the wail at her abandonment.

But there was a strange cast to Beth’s face now that Eva did not recognize, the gasping tears, the streaked pallor, rage making her savage.

‘Who are you talking to?’ Eva asked.

A gun in Beth’s shaking hand.

Corinne. Dearest friend. Trusted confidante. Deep well of mysteries.

‘Tell me a secret,’ she had whispered. ‘The one thing you could never tell anyone.’

And Beth had dug deep inside and opened up about Melissa, about what had happened the morning after Sasha’s party.

‘She ran me a bath,’ Beth had said, her voice reedy and unsteady.

While it was running, her aunt took Beth’s blood-stained clothes away to soak.

‘I had just gotten into the water when she came back.’

The words were difficult to say – like dislodging stones embedded deep within her.