The bathroom was surprisingly small, given the size of the house, and in the short time they’d been in residence she, Chris and Maude had managed to clutter every available surface with an astonishing array of toiletries. Discarded towels were slung over the bath, and a pair of Chris’s trainers had been kicked under the sink.

There was no sign of her phone.

She tried to retrace her steps. She was sure she’d left it on the bed. The door had been open and the phone in plain sight.

Maude.

Once the solution, uncharitable as it was, presented itself, it was hard to ignore. Maude, currently banned from all unsupervised internet use and from all her accounts. Chris had logged her out, deleted all the apps himself.

It’s for your own good, Maudie.

Nell’s phone was logged into the house’s Wi-Fi, and the temptation must have been too much. She stood on the landing, looking at the little ladder that led to the attic. It couldn’t hurt, she decided, to take a look, maybe even retrieve the phone quietly and have a private word with Maude afterwards.

*

It wasn’t there. Not as far as she could see, anyway. Not on or under the bed, not in Maude’s empty suitcase or rucksack. She had looked inside the chest of drawers too, but once she’d found herself concentrating on how best to search without disturbing its contents, she’d stopped.

Maybe she’d got it wrong. Maude would be furious if she found Nell searching her room, and she would have every right to be. Nell looked around the attic one last time. It was stuffy up here, she could at least open the windows, air the place out a bit.

She was just fixing the latch in place when she noticed the book, Maude’s notebook, lying open on one of the bunks, half a dozen coloured pencils scattered over it, and an uncapped pen leaking ink onto the clean duvet cover. She bent down and began to tidy everything up, then it happened. Somewhere behind her in the attic, a shuffling, footsteps; the near imperceptible shift in the air that meant . . .

Maude clambered up the ladder. ‘What do you want? What are you doing up here?’

‘Nothing. I – opened the windows. It was – stifling.’ Nell was still holding the notebook.

‘What are you doing? That’s mine. That’s private.’

‘I’m not doing anything. I was tidying up.’

Maude crossed the room in a few paces and snatched her sketchbook. ‘I can do that myself if I want to, I’m not stupid.’

‘I was looking for my phone—’

‘Well I haven’t got it.’ Maude’s response was near instantaneous.

‘If you borrowed it, it’s OK—’

‘I haven’t borrowed it. I haven’t taken your stupid bloody phone.’

‘Hey,’ Nell said, ‘watch it – that’s not how you speak to me.’