Finally, Odette found her voice. ‘They were shouting. Saying mean things to each other. And then the smoke blowed in the way and when it was gone again only Jake and Ethan’s mummy was standing there. The other lady was gone.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jennifer said. ‘I was nowhere near the cliff edge.’

Rowan turned to her daughter again.

‘Do you think maybe it was another lady that you saw, Odette? Was it someone else’s mummy?’

Odette shook her head but said nothing.

‘Maybe it was Lucy’s mummy?’ She gestured to me.

‘Uh-uh,’ Odette said, shaking her head. ‘The tall blonde lady.’

Jennifer said, ‘Lucy’s blonde, too.’

‘Jake and Ethan’s mummy!’ Odette said indignantly.

‘She seems quite sure,’ Rowan said, ‘that it was you, Jen.’

Jennifer threw her hands up.

‘She’s five years old, for Christ’s sake – not exactly the most reliable witness, is she?’

‘She doesn’t lie.’

‘She’s an attention seeker!’ Jennifer said, her voice rising. ‘She’s been doing it all week, only everyone is too polite to point it out!’

‘What?’ Rowan’s face was flushed with anger. ‘Where the hell do you get off, having a pop at my—’

‘She’s acting up again now! Just to get attention!’

‘Rather than being model citizens, like your boys?’

‘How dare you!’ Jennifer pointed an accusing finger. ‘You have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘How dare you criticise my child when your eldest spent last night rolling around in his own vomit!’

Their raised voices began to overlap in a continuous barrage of accusations and counter-accusations, colliding and clashing and bouncing off the walls.

‘You have no right to bring my boys into it—’

‘You have no right to talk about my daughter—’

‘She’s a spoiled little—’

Russ joined in, veins standing out in his neck.

‘You’ve got a bloody nerve—’

‘I’ve got a nerve! Says the man whose daughter could have drowned while he was—’

‘That is absolute bull—’

‘And then virtually accused my boys of—’

‘For all we know, your boys could have started the fire in the first—’

‘For all we know, you could have coached Odette to say she saw—’

‘Coached her? Are you out of your—’

Abruptly, Rowan stopped.

Odette had her hands tightly over her ears and was crying, silently, fat tears rolling down her freckled cheeks.

‘Shh,’ Rowan said, stroking her daughter’s hair with a shaking hand. ‘It’s OK, baby, I’m sorry, no more shouting. I’m sorry, it’s OK.’

Silence returned. The shouting had stopped but the tension in the room lingered like a bad smell.

Finally, Jennifer held her hands up. ‘I’m just trying to help Kate and do the right thing for Izzy, that’s all.’

‘We know,’ I said. ‘Everybody’s in shock.’