‘Yes. She had died in the night. Mum found her the next morning.’ She listened to the weird echo of her voice in the silent room and it felt disembodied, like the words were spoken by someone else.

The bed was made up with the coverlet and scatter cushions Beth remembered from her aunt’s time. The same pressed flowers hung in frames above the bed, and when Corinne opened the wardrobe, some of Melissa’s clothes were still hanging there. Beth felt the cold hollow of her stomach and wished they hadn’t come.

‘Do you think Eva minds?’ Corinne asked.

‘Minds what?’

‘That this house is all yours?’

‘I don’t think so. We talked about it after we found out – after the will was read. I told her that it was hers too – that I’d share it with her.’

‘And?’

‘She said she didn’t want it.’

There had been a coolness about Eva that day, Beth remembered. A sense that she was holding herself stiffly, back ramrod straight, attempting to show she was immune to the hurt of her aunt’s expressed favouritism. ‘I couldn’t give a fuck,’ she’d said breezily when Beth had clumsily addressed the issue. ‘I don’t want anything belonging to that fruitcake.’ Her voice was tight, and Beth had perceived this as an attempt to disguise the hurt. But Eva’s coldness had persisted since that day.

‘She must be pissed about it, though. Right?’

‘We don’t talk about it,’ she said quickly, a stiffness in her voice.

It was just one of those things in their family – an understanding that the relationship between Beth and her aunt was close, special. Her parents often said it: how Beth was the daughter Melissa never had. It was different with Eva, who was more intolerant, more judgemental. She’d thought their aunt was a drip and a leech. ‘Pathetic’ was what she deemed her. ‘A sad sack.’

Outside, in the garden, the ghostly trumpet-heads of bindweed crawled over the dark shapes of the bushes and trees, colonizing the flower beds her aunt had tended so carefully. She was confused by the sadness coming over her in great waves. Grief, she supposed. She put her hands out to the glass.

‘Put this on,’ Corinne said, and when Beth turned around, she saw the dressing-gown held out to her. Silk shining under moonlight, the outline of a heron along the front panel, instantly recognizable.

‘No,’ Beth said.

‘Come on. You’re shivering.’

Corinne took a step towards her, and Beth tried to back away but the window was right there behind her.

‘I … I don’t want to.’ Her voice faltered, and the intimacy of the night became charged, an edge to things now in the quiet of the deserted house.

‘Remember the rules,’ Corinne said. Her voice was soft but there was insistence there. ‘You must wear what I tell you to wear.’