‘Oh, there’s no need to be like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Difficult.’

‘I’m not being difficult. You seem to be being so … finding it so … easy.’

‘What?’ Frannie says, turning to Cathy in surprise. She frowns, obviously confused.

‘Nothing,’ Cathy says, already feeling guilt – an effect only the baby of their family can have on her. She was lashing out because she felt isolated from them, she tells herself.

‘No, what?’ Frannie says.

Cathy thinks of the lawyer’s details, and of the warrant, and of Will’s blood, and how much of it there was, and finds she doesn’t quite know where to start. ‘I just wondered how you really are, underneath everything,’ Cathy says.

‘I’m really fine,’ Frannie says shortly.

‘I mean – exactly.’

‘What?’

Cathy says nothing. Frannie’s eyes widen as she looks at her. ‘Oh, I’m too fine, am I? Classic you.’

‘Classic me?’

‘Draconian self-punishment.’

‘Jesus, Fran. I was only concerned,’ Cathy says, but it’s a lie. She wasn’t concerned; she was suspicious. Frannie does seem too fine. Shopping in duty free and – right now – wearing a pair of feather earrings she must have put on that morning. Cathy can’t imagine doing such a thing. She is barely getting through the days.

Frannie stands and gets some potatoes out of a drawer and throws one at Cathy. ‘Peel this and stop being moody,’ she says. ‘Ready?’

Cathy catches the second and third potatoes while Paul shrieks with laughter, trying to do as she is told, but still thinking. She could ask about the lawyer. Frannie is already pissed off. Cathy may as well seize upon it.

She sits, looking out over the garden, a bowl between her knees, and curls the peeler around the wet, fleshy texture, thinking. Wanting to ask a million things. How often she and Joe discuss her. If they trust her. Wanting to ask if Frannie is sorry. If she is thankful, for what they did. For what they have done for her. Or if, perhaps, she doesn’t think about it. Cathy glances across the kitchen at her sister as she chops a carrot. Is she as straightforward as she makes out? Or is the directness actually cover, a deflection, like somebody who pretends to be direct but is actually a ball of neuroses, like Cathy herself?

‘What I mean,’ Cathy says, while peeling the potatoes, ‘is just …’

Frannie’s expression has hardened. She waits, silently, for Cathy to finish, like a police officer with the upper hand. ‘Just what?’ she says eventually.

‘I saw your phone in Verona. I know I shouldn’t have looked. But I saw that lawyer contact you back.’

Frannie’s eyebrows rise. ‘Right,’ she says archly.

‘Don’t be mad.’

Frannie sighs and leans against the kitchen worktop. ‘To be honest, I thought it would be sensible to have a lawyer on hand – for all of us. In the current climate. If anyone is searching my phone and finds his details, then it’s likely too late anyway …’ A sad laugh escapes through her straight, white teeth. And in that moment Cathy believes her. That laugh is vintage Frannie.