By controlling her. By using her grief to your advantage. But hadn’t Paul done the same? Hadn’t he thought he was so smart, using her as his way in? Nathalie hadn’t shared Daniel’s guardedness, that was the thing. You could tell just by observing her that she’d suffered a loss and was desperate to plug the void. So, when Paul had been dropped into his new life on the Chainwell Estate, trained and prepped, ambitious and naïve, he’d set out to befriend her first. To keep “bumping into her” when her brother wasn’t around, and patiently to gain her trust. He’d been the odd-job man who’d turned up to fix the fridge in the café where she’d worked; the fellow smoker ready with a light outside the tower block; the cheeky chappie making her laugh even when her eyes were still so sad. Then Paul had used everything in his skill set to overcome Daniel’s wariness of his little sister’s new boyfriend. Painstakingly, he’d established himself in their lives, their flat, their family, watching and listening for any clue as to what had really happened to Billie. He hadn’t noticed the growth of his feelings for Nathalie until it was too late. He’d been blinkered, fixated on his task . . . and he’d never been in love before. Didn’t know how it could coil itself around you while you were looking the other way.

Paul saw the next punch coming but didn’t duck. Let it smash him full in the face. This was the kind of punishment he could take: an attack on himself, not Freya, not Nathalie. He stood firm as Daniel hit again and pain splintered across his cheekbones.

“She was my sister,” Daniel roared. “And you were nothing. Nobody. A pig. A liar. A murderer.”

The final word made a fist around Paul’s heart. There was another second of dizzy reprieve, before the cricket bat struck his knees and he folded to the floor. Daniel kicked him in the ribs and Paul let himself go limp. His head spun with voices, mingling with Daniel’s stream of accusations.

Nathalie saying, Who the hell are you?

Steph saying, Did you kill someone?

Freya saying, Dad, you’re not giving up?

And he was so close to giving up. Closing his eyes and accepting what he deserved. But what about what Freya and Steph deserved? What about everything Yvette had tried to do for him, to help him see that he had made mistakes but he wasn’t evil?