Steph reeled on the spot for a second, then turned and ran toward the back of the maisonette. The small kitchen was bare, the tiny table and all the surfaces wiped clean. She continued along the corridor to Becca’s bedroom, shouting Freya’s name, her fingertips trailing the cold walls. The bed was unmade, the curtains drawn. A week-old newspaper, which Steph had brought on her last visit, lay unopened next to the bed.

Steph raced on to the spare room, freezing as she tried the handle.

The door was locked.

Her whole chest became a drumbeat. She rattled the handle and pressed her ear to the wood, willing her heart to quieten so she could hear.

“Steph?” Paul appeared beside her but she shushed him, listening hard.

Then she reared back with a hand over her mouth.

“Someone’s in there,” she said, through ragged breaths.

She’d heard a moan. Hadn’t she? Could she have imagined it? Steph threw herself against the door, pounding with both fists. “Freya! Freya? Is that you?”

There was no response, but she thought she heard another noise, barely perceptible. Steph ran back to the living room. There had to be a key somewhere. She yanked out drawers, spilling their contents onto the floor, shouting to Paul to search the bedroom at the same time. Finding nothing, Steph returned to her stirring cousin and frantically patted her pockets.

As she did so, she found herself fixating on Becca’s left arm, still stretched out across the worn carpet. She remembered it flailing to intercept the knife, flailing again at the start of her seizure. Now the hand was in a loose fist. The first finger sticking slightly out.

Becca wasn’t just thrashing.

She was pointing.

Trying to tell me Freya is here?

Had Steph been blind once again? Wasted yet more time?

“Paul!” she screamed. “We have to get into that room!”

She heard the sound of his rapid footsteps, then a thud. The noise was repeated as Steph rushed back down the corridor, to find Paul slamming his shoulder into the spare-room door. He gasped in pain but braced himself and tried again. In different circumstances, Freya would have been tickled to watch him enacting this police cliché. You’ve obviously done this before, Dad. You were a bit younger, though, right?

On his third attempt the door gave way. They both flew into the room. Steph’s vision smudged, unable to take in the scene. For a moment she was so overwhelmed that everything fragmented and slowed.

Then she saw the figure on the bed. The tangle of greasy blonde hair on the pillow. Freya was curled up, eyes closed, her skin pale and sweaty with a weeping red wound on her head.