‘He has pills, but he doesn’t like taking them. Says they make him feel like a zombie.’ She turned her wedding ring on her finger, rolling it between thumb and forefinger. ‘I found a stash of them under his bed; he’d been pretending to take them but he’d just been hiding them instead. And I was so frightened. I didn’t want to confront him in case it set him off again, so I just left them there. Pathetic, aren’t I?’

‘No, you’re not. Not at all.’

‘Will you promise me you won’t tell anyone about this?’

‘Of course. I won’t tell anyone.’

‘Not even Sean?’

‘Not even him.’

She got up off the bench and wiped her eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out dramatically. ‘Let me talk to Ethan about – about whatever happened this afternoon with Daniel. I’ll ask him to be nicer to him from now on.’

‘Thanks, Jennifer. Are you OK?’

‘Fine.’ She summoned a shaky smile. ‘I’m always fine.’

I watched her walking back across the lawn, towards the villa, and thought about what she’d said. It was a terrible thing to fear for your children, to fear they might come to harm. It was the unthinkable dread of every parent that their own flesh and blood could somehow end up being the cause of that harm. Anxiety, depression, isolation, self-harm; drugs to blot out the pain, blades to slice flesh where the scars couldn’t be seen. The thought of your own child suffering in secret was unbearable.

I knew all of that. I felt it myself, for my own children.

Chapter 53

53

Lucy was slumped in the big armchair with her phone when I knocked on her bedroom door.

I pushed the door shut behind me and sat down on the edge of her bed.

‘How was shopping?’

‘Good,’ she said, not looking up from her phone. ‘Hot.’

‘Get any bargains?’

‘A few bits, a new hat and some sandals.’

‘Great, you must show me them later.’

‘Sure.’

‘Lucy?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Put your phone down a minute, I want to ask you something.’

She sighed and put her phone in her lap. ‘What?’

‘Have the boys – I mean Jake and Ethan – ever talked to you about taking one of the hire cars out for a drive, without the adults knowing?’

She gave me an exaggerated shrug. ‘Don’t know. Don’t think so.’

‘You sure?’

‘They’re both too young to drive, aren’t they? Jake’s not even sixteen yet.’

We looked at each other, both aware that this was a dodge rather than an answer.

‘So they’ve never mentioned it to you?’

She looked up and over my shoulder. ‘They talk about a lot of stuff, all kinds of things, boasting with each other. Why are you asking me this?’

‘Just something I was wondering about.’

She picked her phone up again and began scrolling. ‘Right.’