Angie released a sob of relief and held both hands over her face. She swiped her tears dry, passed her flattened palms over her hair to smooth it. Edie stood and held out her hand, which Angie took. Edie helped her up then reached out her other hand, in which she held a letter with Tamsyn’s name on it.

Angie shook her head. ‘She can’t come back here, Edie. Your mother… I don’t think it’s safe.’

Edie nodded. Without her rebel armour – the make-up, black clothes, statement jewellery – her vulnerability was plain to see. Young and hurting, no more than a child desperately trying to keep afloat in a family that had long since fractured.

‘Will you tell her?’ Edie glanced out across the sea and the wind blew her hair off her face. ‘What my mother said?’

Angie didn’t answer immediately. She hadn’t thought about it, not properly, but what choice did she have? Eleanor had forbidden Tamsyn to go to the house again. She would ask why. And what could Angie say that would sound convincing? Tamsyn was going to be broken-hearted and Angie felt a bitter wave of anger sweep through her. She’d predicted this would happen. Saw it plain as day. And who would have to pick up the pieces? Not Eleanor or Max or Edie, but her, and the thought was exhausting her. More emotion. More tears. More confusion overwhelming her youngest child.

‘Will you give her this note?’

Angie regarded the envelope warily. She wanted her family to have nothing more to do with the Davenports.

‘Please?’

There was that vulnerability again. It melted Angie’s resolve. ‘Yes. I’ll give it to her.’ And she reached for the letter.

Edie turned without another word and walked back to the house, her arms crossed tightly, bare feet padding along the grassy path, and the wind catching her pyjama bottoms like boat sails.

As Angie began the walk home to St Just, she opened her bag to put the envelope in, and there, among the detritus, was the green-tagged key to The Cliff House. She turned to call back to Edie, but she was already gone.

‘I’m not going back,’ she muttered under her breath.

They would have to come and collect it. Or Gareth could drop it back for her. There was no way on earth she was setting foot in that nuthouse again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Tamsyn

August 1986

‘How long… are you going to… be, love?’

‘Only a few minutes!’

I didn’t get back from the party until the small hours, and when I fell into my own bed, I slept heavily and late. I woke with a burning pain in my shoulder. The site of my tattoo pulsed as if angry creatures were trapped beneath the skin, scratching to escape.