The words came hesitantly at first, but Valentina’s watchful silence drew her on.

‘One afternoon last autumn, I got a call from the school principal. There’d been an argument between some of the girls. Beth was upset. She’s not a very verbal child – she never has been. When people tease her she gets flustered. She’s helpless to defend herself.’

Abi heard the words coming from her mouth and knew how pathetic they sounded – how delusional. But she still clung to the belief that what had happened was not really Beth’s fault.

‘We never did find out what was said that upset her. But it must have been bad because she just lost it. All hell had broken loose by the time the teacher got involved. Beth had a craft knife in her hand, and she was threatening one of the other girls with it. She was very upset. The teacher tried to calm her down and that’s when she …’ Abi paused – it was still shocking to her. ‘She turned the knife on herself.’

Beside her she could hear Valentina’s intake of breath but didn’t dare look at her. Beyond, in the water, the girls were swimming in the sunshine, the wet cotton of Beth’s T-shirt plastered to her body. That day in October seemed so distant. Surely there could be no harm in talking about it now?

‘It wasn’t a deep cut, thank God. She needed a couple of stitches, but that was all.’

‘It must have been frightening for the other girls,’ Valentina remarked, not unkindly, and it was true. Whenever Abi imagined the scene, she pictured the blood spreading through the fabric of Beth’s shirt, her eyes wild, that knife in her hand. Helen Bracken told them afterwards that some of the girls had been hysterical.

‘She was suspended from school for a week,’ Abi said. ‘We never did find out what led her to do such a thing. She was teased by some of the girls about her back, the way she was hunched. Even after the operation, she still got a lot of flak. Girls can be cruel. And in hindsight, things weren’t great at home. I was away a lot with work, Mark was unhappy.’

Valentina listened but didn’t interrupt, letting Abi’s words run on.

‘After the incident, I cut back on my travel. We found a counsellor for Beth and that seemed to help. The only thing we couldn’t decide on was what to do about school.’

Mark thought they should move her – find someplace else to start over. But Abi disagreed. She told herself that it was a small blip and that things would return to normal. Besides, it was better for Beth to be in the same school as her older sister – to have Eva there to protect her. And deep down Abi felt that by moving her they were somehow admitting to Beth’s culpability.