‘Well, yes. Between you and me, I was never quite cool enough to be friends with Nell Galilee and it would be a bit of a push, to go from using the drying ground to just nipping inside to get upstairs – but, yes, I thought I could try it. And it’s not as if I’d have to search for it. And anyway’ – she turned her attention to Nell – ‘there’s something out there, something about that little patch of land, don’t you think – it’s – connected somehow, I think – almost like it’s—’

‘Alive,’ said Evie.

Carolyn nodded approvingly at her daughter. ‘That’s it.’

‘Everyone thinks it’s the shoe,’ said Evie, wiping her tears away. ‘Or the house, but really it’s the place – it’s the ground in between. There’s something – wrong there.’

‘A reason,’ Carolyn said, ‘for all these protections.’

The kitchen lights brightened once more, then flickered out again. Nell leant forward. ‘And it was you all along, who opened the panel, that day you brought round the cake.’

‘I wasn’t quick enough,’ said Carolyn. ‘Maude came in just a little too soon. Which was – irritating. But then she hurt her foot and you were only too eager to palm her off onto me; and it was me she confided in, when she stole the shoe.’

It might have been Nell’s imagination, but Kym seemed a little closer to Carolyn too, and was keeping a wary eye on the hand that held the knife.

‘She didn’t really have a plan – she was acting on instinct, I think, when she hid it from you. But it was easy enough to persuade her to give to me – for safekeeping. I told her I would give it back to her when you left, that she would get to keep it and you would never know. She does have a problem with you, Nell, doesn’t she? And it will only get worse, just you wait and see. Evie is verging on the uncontrollable. Lying. Stealing.’ She shook her head. ‘Gay, for God’s sake, as if that means she’s going to have any normal sort of life.’ She looked at Nell, confiding, almost friendly. ‘I couldn’t believe it, when I saw it was you. Fate again, you see, stepping in because I needed it – the shoe – another chance. I need another chance to be a mother. To get it right this time.’

‘Then you understand,’ said Nell. ‘It’s Maude, you see – we have to make sure she’s all right.’

Carolyn shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Books are all very well, but when it comes down to it, you have to go on instinct. Good intentions are one thing, but when it comes down to it – you have to be willing . . .’