‘Not really.’ Gina sat back down at the table. ‘Just Carolyn Wilson being – well, you know. And I don’t think she likes the . . .’ She hesitated, frowning. ‘Well, you know what visitors can be like, if something doesn’t suit them.’

Kym closed the fridge and took the seat opposite her. ‘Are you cross?’ she asked. ‘Am I in trouble now? About the baby-sitting?’

‘Your mother won’t be pleased.’

‘I can manage her. It’s you I’m worried about.’

Gina looked at her. ‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t,’ she said, ‘but I don’t suppose that counts for much.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘What good will it do? Poking around that old place.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kym. ‘Think of it as . . . scratching an itch. Getting it all out of my system.’ She helped herself to the last of the ginger biscuits.

‘You’ll spoil your dinner.’

‘You have to stop fussing.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

Kym smiled at her. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’

*

Nell didn’t feel like eating, and she didn’t much want to go back up to the bathroom and deal with the pregnancy test either, suddenly it felt like tempting fate; if she didn’t know, she couldn’t be wrong. She passed her hand absently over her belly, no harm done, she reminded herself, blinking away an image of her crashing into the table, of falling – worse than that. She wished she’d gone with Chris and Maude after all. She wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of the day alone in the house.

She thought she might ring the letting agents, but a brief inspection of her phone confirmed that conversation would have to wait. The damn thing was useless, its screen cracked and blank, and there was nowhere in town to get it fixed, of that she was certain.

The best thing to do was to work.

She started off at the little table in the living room, laying out the glass she’d collected so far, playing with it, grading it by size, colour, translucence. Resolutely not thinking about earlier, and absolutely not listening out for any other odd noises. But after a while she’d decided the light wasn’t good enough, the windows were too small, the ceiling too low, and switching on the overhead lights didn’t help. There was, it seemed to her, a low-level buzzing that filled the room and never seemed to go away, not even when she switched the lights off again. She felt – hemmed in.