“Just picked up some shopping to keep you and Becca going this weekend,” she says. “The bags are heavy. Could you ask Nick to come down to Costcutter and help me? Ask nicely, though, Kate.”

I glance at the kitchen door. “He . . . er . . . he’s busy. I’ll come.” Before she can object, I hang up. For a few seconds I stand there, too much breath in my mouth, not enough in my lungs.

I poke my head round my bedroom door and whisper to Becca, “Got to help Mum carry some shopping back. Won’t be long.”

“Did you do it?” She’s pale, as though she really is afraid of a lurking spider.

I nod, holding up crossed fingers.

“Is he eating it?”

I nod again. “Now we’ll just have to wait and see.”

As I walk off I’m light-headed, suddenly euphoric, and a blade of evening sun leads me down the corridor.

34.

STEPH

Steph sat in her car outside her house, her windshield slowly steaming up, black skeletons of trees disappearing behind the veil. Back from her aborted mission, she was at a loss as to what to do next.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that first night, when Freya’s absence could be measured in hours rather than days, and the PCs had asked whether Steph or Paul had any enemies. Paul’s conscience had clearly tortured and driven him ever since. But Steph had refused to join the dots between her own secrets and the protective sphere she’d tried to hold around her family, like a spell. If they did somehow connect, the picture they would form was everything she’d ever feared.

There was something to grasp onto now, though. A sign that she had to join those dots, face the unthinkable. She seized her phone and scrolled to a number she’d called “Work 2” in her contacts. Her finger froze on the screen as she was hit by the same doubts she’d had while driving along the motorway just now. Attacking this head-on seemed too risky. There were risks to every plan she thought of: risks to Freya and Paul, to herself, her whole existence.

Risks if she was wrong, risks if she was right.

—

Minutes later, she was pounding on Emma’s door. She knew she was knocking too loudly, that it was getting late, but they were far beyond neighborly etiquette. And Steph was beyond worrying what Emma thought of her, even beyond worrying whether she was completely trustworthy. She had nowhere else to turn.

Her neighbor peered out into the hall. “Steph?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

Emma blinked and beckoned her in.

Steph didn’t waste any time. Adrenaline was flying around her body. She thrust forward a piece of paper. “Take this to the police.”

Emma looked startled. “What?”