Gabby just stared at her mother, the woman who had carried her in her belly, and who had never in her life given her a thing that was worth having. The very same woman who was now trying her hardest to talk her into believing that her house burning down and her son dying was all some kind of conspiracy by persons unknown, as the police would put it. She had burned that house down to stop Gabby having access to her own children. That was the truth of it all. Cynthia had done it to get what she wanted, Just as she had always got what she wanted all her life, no matter who suffered because of it. It was a wicked, calculated act that had been the cause of her little son dying, choking to death in thick black smoke. She could hear his voice calling for his nanny over and over – that made it even worse. He hadn’t called for his mummy – only his nanny who had made sure he wanted her over his own mother. Even Cherie didn’t want her, or her father either, come to that. She was a spoiled, rude and arrogant little girl who, if she had not been so fucking ruined, would not have made them all leave her granddad’s house.

‘It was Cherie, you know, who made us come back that night. She didn’t like it at your dad’s – she said it stank. You have always drummed into her how your mum and dad smelt, and were not nice people, and that I can’t be trusted to take care of them. And so, to please her, to make her happy, I brought them back to my house. The house where her brother died, because her adored nanny tried to burn the place down while we were sleeping in our beds. How the fuck do you sleep at night! Knowing what you did, how the fuck do you sleep a wink? Is that why you went on the drink? Because you drink a lot now, Mum, don’t you? Does it drown out the knowledge that you fried your grandson in his cot?’

Cynthia tried not to react to that; it was a truth which ate away at her every day. She had to get Gabriella onside again. ‘What would I know about starting fires, you silly girl. You’re overwrought, Gabriella, listen to yourself, for fuck’s sake! You haven’t been right since that child died, and I understand that, babe, I feel the same way . . .’