Steph lay back against her pillows. She was having trouble taking all this in. Her dad was a criminal who had basically worked for a drugs gang. Her mum had not necessarily perverted the course of justice, but she hadn’t looked into the death of Elizabeth fully. Wendy had certainly failed to perform her duties diligently. She had covered up the murder of Elizabeth to protect … Steph paused in mid-thought. Wendy hadn’t done any of this for her own gain, she had been caught up in this because she’d wanted to protect Steph.

Oh, the irony. All this time Wendy had kept Steph at arms’ length because she didn’t want her getting involved. She had pushed her away, both in an emotional sense and in a physical sense to protect her. Even when Steph had thought her dad was so wonderful, so caring and so loving, that her dad was the good guy, Wendy had let her believe that to protect her.

Tears filled Steph’s eyes and she once again reached out for her mother. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said, and her face crumpled as the tears spilled over.

Wendy leaned across the bed and held Steph close to her. Steph couldn’t remember the last time they’d had so much physical contact. Her mother was actually comforting her. Steph could feel the love surging from Wendy like she’d never known before. More sobs came, sobs of joy and relief. Her mother loved her, there was no denying it.

It was a few minutes before Steph was able to put another coherent thought together. She was acutely aware now of the sacrifice her mother had made, not only in what she’d done in the past, but also in what she’d done today. She wished there were another solution but she knew Wendy had to step forward and be accountable for her actions. Wendy owed it to Elizabeth Sinclair and to Sonia Lomas.

Steph thought of Harry and what he must be going through right now. Did he know what his mother had done to Elizabeth, or was he just praying she’d pull through and at that moment able to forgive her anything?

Steph wasn’t sure how she felt about Pru Sinclair herself. The woman had tried to kill her. She shuddered. She didn’t remember much else after going in the water, except Pru slipping in beside her. At first, in her confusion, Steph had thought Pru was going to save her, but then she’d realised she was trying to hold her down. Some primitive instinct in Steph had surfaced and she remembered thrashing around, trying to get away from Pru.

The last thing Steph could remember was Pru grabbing a handful of Steph’s hair, right at the scalp, and then slamming Steph’s head against the side of the boat.