Her thighs burning, she takes the stairs two at a time. The second-last step creaks loudly, and her throat tightens. She reaches out to hold the bannister. From the ceiling above the staircase, Alex Riboni swings, lifeless and limp. Oli folds forward, dizzy. She’s barely eaten today. There’s a dark shape on the floor a little further down the dark corridor. What is that? Music fills the house. Kate playing the piano? The sound triggers a flood of memories. Sneaking into the house to grab some things, she didn’t want to see her mother, didn’t want to endure another draining exchange. Music was playing that day too. She slips past the photo of Isabelle, her reflection a white blur on the detective’s perfect face.

Oli stumbles into the bedroom. She changes her clothes, out of breath. Stop, Oli, breathe.

Still the music plays. She knows she must be imagining it, but she can hear it, feel it, vibrating through the floorboards. She lurches forward, her hands braced against the bed as the old shock knifes her, fresh and real. Sunlight pushes in around the closed curtains. The pill bottle, the upended bottle of gin. The stench of vomit and perfume. Music playing from somewhere. Her mother’s limp hand, fingers curled toward the ceiling. The glistening white crescents of her eyes. The cluster of melting candles crammed onto the bedside table, billowing smoke from the tips of their flames.

Oli falls to her knees, lurching toward Sally Groves. ‘Mum? Mum! No. No.’ Eyes shut and gripping the bedhead, seventeen-year-old Oli gathers her mother’s limp body into her lap, pushing dirty blonde hair from Sally’s cold face. ‘Mum!’ A sob erupts from Oli, and she gasps for air. Sally moans, and Oli almost chokes on a surge of hope. She shakes her mother gently at first, then more frantically. ‘Mum, please. Come on. I’m going to get help, I promise.’

Oli grabs the phone from the other side of the bed, her father’s side, empty for years now. She is surprised to see a couple of books and a pen. No one ever got rid of his things. He’s still here, still hurting them.

She calls triple zero. ‘Ambulance!’ she tells the emergency services after giving the address. ‘Please hurry. It’s my mum.’

Oli drops the phone on the floor and returns to Sally. As she shakes her, talks to her, begs her to live, she notices an open notebook on the carpet. One of Oli’s old journals, with lines and lines of her neat handwriting detailing her deepest secrets. ‘Oh god, Mum, no. What have you done?’ Tears drip down Oli’s face as she gropes Sally’s neck for a pulse. ‘Mum, please.’ Oli flips the notebook shut and kicks it under the bed.