I saw a fingernail when Mary first brought me in here. I thought it was a cutting from a painting, but it wasn’t. It was real.

I sweep wildly with my arms, attacking what’s left of the canvas mountain until it breaks up, falls away to one side or the other, and I see him. ‘Aidan!’ I sob. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

His eyes are half closed. There’s a square of shiny brown tape over his mouth. I yank it off, hoping he’ll move or make a sound. Nothing. I’m terrified to look at his still, white face, in case it stays still for too long. He was alive last night, earlier today. The cows, mooing in the fields outside . . . I thought one of them sounded as if it was in pain. The low groan I thought came from Mary . . . It was Aidan I heard, Aidan moaning in agony, his life spilling away in blood that I mistook for red paint on the cream carpet. Why didn’t I see? Why didn’t I know?

Beneath his right shoulder there’s a dark hole in his shirt. Its edge is black, as if the fabric’s been burned. Shot—he’s been shot. His mouth is slack, open, and I can see something inside it, something flesh-coloured, too big to be his tongue. I touch it, then, as gently as I can, I pull it out. It’s a peach-coloured bath sponge, similar to the one Gemma used to gag me. She also used parcel tape to keep my mouth closed and the sponge in place. The exactness of the recreation paralyses me for a moment as ice-cold terror floods my body. I thought that once I had the truth, the fear would end, but it hasn’t. It’s worse.

Aidan didn’t destroy my gardens, or Mary’s pictures. She lied. She told me there were eighteen paintings in her exhibition that never was, the one Aidan invented. Did she forget she’d said that, when she showed me the sales list from Aidan’s TiqTaq show? It wasn’t the real list, it was one she’d written out herself. I recognised her ‘M’ from her signature on Abberton. Eighteen pictures in Aidan’s exhibition, eighteen empty frames on his walls, each one a tribute to a painting that had been viciously dismembered.

She switched places with him in her story, reversed their roles. Made him the destroyer, herself the victim.

I lied too. Did Mary believe me, that I wanted her to leave Garstead Cottage for her own safety? Was I convincing?

Panting hard, I drop the sponge and wipe my hand on my trousers until the skin smarts.