The topic of the crime is still a tight, knotty ball that sits between both of us. ‘Yes,’ I say, looking at her. ‘It’s what he wanted.’

‘So he says.’

She stands and makes us two cups of tea. At the boiling of the kettle, the nurse outside her room turns his head just slightly, which seems to irritate Frannie.

She hands me the tea in a hot plastic cup with a quick, embarrassed smile. ‘It’ll probably bloody taste of melted plastic,’ she says.

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Do you think your testimony helped?’ she asks.

Because that’s what I was doing. I was helping, so Joe’s trial went ahead without Frannie under suspicion, like he wanted, but I was also trying to mitigate it. To explain why he did what he did. To tell the court he was of good character otherwise. We were trying to walk the line between the police believing Joe enough not to investigate but also to get them to treat him leniently. That was why it was so worrying that our statements didn’t quite match: we’d had only those few minutes in the outhouse to cook them up. Still, I hope I’ve done enough.

Frannie, who wasn’t charged for her role in burying the body because of her mental health, sits down, cradling her tea, and meets my eyes. The essence of Frannie still sits behind them. Sunny Frannie. She never lost that, in her depression. It was just masked for a while.

After Joe was taken in, and after I told the police the first handful of lies, Frannie didn’t come out of her cottage for nine days after her interview. She lost more weight. Wouldn’t answer her phone, not even to Joe on his daily call. Our parents thought she was sad for Joe. I knew exactly what the problem was, but couldn’t solve it, and sat there most evenings of that strange, surreal week worrying for Paul.

Things escalated pretty quickly after that. A mental-health professional assessed her, asked if I would have Paul for a night, which, in the way of things that feel so disturbing they must be temporary, eventually became hundreds of nights.

‘So-so,’ I say. ‘I just told everyone what happened really. The judge went through the crimes at the end.’

‘Do you think he’ll get them down to manslaughter? Do you think you helped?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What does Jason say?’

‘Nothing. He’s such a lawyer,’ I say, which is unfair, really. Though unconventional, Jason still refuses to speculate, still won’t cross certain lines.

‘He’s a hot lawyer,’ Frannie says, which almost makes me spit out my tea.

‘We’ll have to see what happens,’ I say. ‘The jury seem fair.’

I reach for Frannie’s hands across the bed. Somehow, she’s made this sterile, medicalized room smell like her. Her laundry, her perfume. She lets me touch her. Her nurse outside the door watches carefully. He’s standing on the royal-blue linoleum which we can see through the hatch-like window in her door. It looks like a lake. Frannie ignores him, but her body language changes.