‘On to you?’

‘I thought you knew it was me who killed Grace’s father,’ she says. ‘I thought that’s why you’d come. I mean, no one would come up here to this dilapidated old place for a holiday. But then I saw your face on the news, heard what you’d done to your husband.’

‘So you contacted Mark and told him where I was?’

‘Yes,’ she says, looking down at her feet. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing because he sounded so nice and he said how you had attacked him and that you weren’t right in the head. He said he was scared you were going to hurt Joe.’

‘I would never hurt my son,’ I say, my voice riven with anger. ‘Never. He’s my world. My life. I came out here because I’d only been allowed to see him for a few hours a week. It was killing me.’

‘I can see that now,’ says Isobel nervously. ‘But I was just so scared that you’d found me out. I thought I was doing it for the best.’

‘So you knew Mark would be here when you dropped me off?’ I say. ‘You knew Mark was in this house?’

She nods her head.

‘He told me he would drive up,’ she says, her words coming out in fast, nervous bursts. ‘I gave him directions to the house and told him you’d be out at the carol service and that the door had no lock. He could let himself in. Then when you got back he would confront you and call the police. I had no idea he would lock you up like this or take Joe. I mean it, Lisa, I didn’t know he would do that.’

‘Mark has spent years trying to scare me,’ I say wearily. ‘Trying to undermine me, make out I’m mad and stupid and incompetent. That’s why I struck out at him that night, Isobel. Because he was abusing me, mentally, and he’s been doing it ever since we met.’

‘I’m sorry, Lisa,’ she says, coming towards me with her hand outstretched. ‘I didn’t know. And I like you, I really do. It’s been good to talk to someone, to finally unburden this … this secret I’ve been carrying all these years. I know I shouldn’t have called Mark but I was scared you’d found me out. Yet, the strange thing is that now all that fear is gone. I feel … free.’

I go to speak but before I can get the words out there’s a violent hammering on the door.

‘POLICE! OPEN UP!’

Isobel looks at me with a resigned expression. This is it. For both of us.

45

Harrowby District Police Station

‘This way, Mrs Ward.’

The arresting officer, an expressionless shadow of a man with hunched shoulders and a receding hairline, escorts me along a narrow corridor that is lined with interview rooms. My eyes are red and sore from crying and my back aches from the plastic chair I’ve had to sit on for the last two hours while they interviewed me.