It was pointless trying to deny it. ‘I still don’t understand, though,’ Penrose said. ‘If your mother had a new life to look forward to, why would she do something so terrible?’ Naylor 269said nothing, challenging him to find the answer to his own question. ‘Tell me, Jack. Please.’

‘If I’d had the choice, I’d have died on the spot rather than be left behind. I remember thinking that on the day of the funeral.’ Penrose closed his eyes, remembering that bleak January day – hundreds of people crowded round a double grave as four tiny coffins were laid next to their mother, each with a bunch of snowdrops placed on top. ‘I’ve spent my whole life feeling guilty for what I did, wondering if that’s the reason Ma treated me differently that day. Perhaps there was always something bad in me, and she could see it. Alex did her best to heal that over the years …’

‘So why punish her?’

‘Because she didn’t tell me the truth, not until this week. She could have taken all that pain away, but she didn’t. She made me live with it, and rely on her to make it bearable.’ Again he waited for Penrose to catch up, then continued half impatiently. ‘You don’t have to be a photographer to know that your eyes can play tricks on you. When I went into that bedroom, I saw my mother trying to kill my sister, but perhaps that’s what I wanted to see. Perhaps it was better than the alternative.’

‘Which was?’ There was a long silence as the answer finally dawned on Penrose. ‘You mean that Alex killed the other children?’ he asked. Naylor nodded. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, she admitted it.’

‘Why now, after all this time?’

‘Because I drove her to it. She didn’t mean to say anything, but we were having a row and she said something in the heat of the moment that she couldn’t take back.’

‘What was the row about?’ 270

‘Christmas, of course. What else, at this time of year? It’s a terrible time for us, for obvious reasons, but we’ve always got through it together.’

‘And this year she was going away.’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t that. Alex was looking forward to the weekend, and I was pleased for her – she’d let me into the secret about Marlene Dietrich, and I knew how important it was for her career. And if I’m honest, I was quite looking forward to being on my own for once – just an ordinary bloke on Christmas Day. I think I’d even kidded myself that the memories might go away if Alex wasn’t there to remind me.’

‘So what changed?’