‘Yes, you, my dear,’ Valentina said. ‘When Corinne told me, I didn’t believe her. But now that you are here … yes, I can see similarities between you and Anouk. Your hair, your physique. Your hauteur.’

Eva’s frown deepened but this just made Valentina more amused, her tinkly laugh rising. Reaching out, she briefly stroked Eva’s face, before adopting a brisk tone:

‘Now, come! I must show you to your accommodation.’

She led them back outside and across the terrace to another door they had not noticed. As she walked, Valentina told them: ‘You know, they are so happy together, the two girls. So close.’

‘Really?’

‘I have never known Corinne to connect with anyone like this. Apart from Anouk, of course.’

‘She must miss her sister greatly,’ Abi ventured. ‘But how wonderful for Anouk. A scholarship to McGill!’

Valentina looked back and smiled, but there was something myopic about it, and then she opened a door that led into a small, narrow room with a large, cluttered desk and filing cabinets. A bed was made up in the corner.

‘Your room, chérie,’ she said to Eva, indicating with a waft of her hand, then leading them to a small staircase concealed behind a curtain.

‘They have been inseparable these last two weeks,’ she went on, picking up the earlier thread of conversation as she led them up the steep run of steps. ‘So good at sharing, at helping each other. Such devotion. And so independent now. I have hardly seen them.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know what teenagers are like. They don’t want parents hanging around. And it is good for them, is it not, to exercise their own free will?’

‘Within reason,’ Abi said. It worried her a little, how much Valentina may have left the girls to their own devices. The word ‘devotion’ stuck in her head, pairing with its sister ‘disturbed’. She knew her own daughter well enough. Beth was soft but prone to fierce emotions. Abi couldn’t help but wonder what dark feelings might have been summoned to life from her innocence.

‘Here we are!’ Valentina announced, twirling with a flourish, her blue dress briefly inflating like a jellyfish at the centre of the room.

It was a loft space, anchored by a bed covered with a plush red blanket. High above, the Velux windows were thrown open to the evening light, but the room still felt airless and heavy with heat. Some of the chaos of the main house had crept its way up here into the loft, old suitcases piled in one corner, towers of paperbacks leaning against the walls. The place felt crowded with heavy furniture.

‘It’s lovely,’ Abi said, turning to Mark. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Charming,’ Mark replied, straining for sincerity.