‘Yes, that’s Pete all right. It would never occur to him that there would be any other reason I needed Robin to come to the house.’ Carolyn shifted her weight, winced again. ‘I told him there was a bit of extra work on offer,’ she said. ‘Cash in hand, helping me strip the walls, sand down the paintwork. I told him not to tell anyone else, because I wanted to keep it a secret from Ollie. I put everything back in the wall where it belonged. I told him to come to the house that evening, once everyone had gone home. And I waited. I had it all worked out. I’d get here first, get everything ready, and if he came – it was up to him, you see. I’d say I’d left my phone here, and what a shock it was finding him like that; what an awful accident. There was no light switch in the hall, you see. Just the exposed wires, and people get into habits, don’t they? You’d just expect a switch to be there, to be safe.’ She looked Kym straight in the eye. ‘I turned the power on, and I waited. We waited.’

‘We?’

‘This house isn’t empty, you know that as well as I do.’ Carolyn lifted her chin, defiant. ‘I didn’t touch Robin Verrill. It was his choice to come. And when he did, it took him.’

‘It?’

‘It’s here now – it doesn’t matter what you do to me – it’s here and all we have to do is wait.’

‘For what?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Carolyn. ‘It’ll all come out. Poor Maude – disruptive at school, excluded, unhappy. Neglected. Left all alone in that condition, she’s a remarkably impressionable girl. No wonder she took a knife and – what is it called? Self-harm? Not my fault, anyway, and she’s very ill.’ She smiled. ‘All we have to do is wait,’ she said.

Kym could smell it again, the strongest it had ever been, burning wire, melting plastic, smoke, and – and . . . ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘You’re – mad. You’re actually mad.’

‘I found out I was pregnant late the following month, with Evie.’ She shook her head. ‘She has no idea, what I did for her. I wasn’t sure, you know, if it would be enough. A young child is better, you see. But it worked.’ She looked at Kym, her eyes glittering. ‘Will you tell her, do you think? What I did for her? Where she came from? Do you have the nerve to do that?’

Kym scrambled to her feet, backed away.

‘Gina’s child for mine. That’s what it came down to.’ Carolyn’s face crumpled, and for a moment she looked old, weary, afraid. ‘You can’t imagine,’ she said, ‘that I’m happy about any of this.’

*