‘It’s fine. All good.’ Faith looks away. ‘I’m making them all pay now, you see. Every last one of them.’

‘Who, Faith? Who are you making pay?’

‘Mitch—’

‘Mitch?’

‘He raped her when she was in her early twenties.’

Alice covers her mouth, holding in a gasp, tears blurring her vision. ‘Mitch was a rapist?’

Faith nods. ‘That’s exactly what he is. Mum had tried to convince herself it was a mistake, not rape. That’s what she wrote in her diary – but she’d said no, over and over – and still he forced himself on her.’ She swipes the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘You’ve no idea how sick to my stomach it made me having to be so close to that disgusting man. I was glad when it was over.’

A flash of memory: Mitch propped against the bed – a puppet. ‘You killed him?’

‘I knew it wouldn’t be long before he drank the brandy – he loves, I mean loved his brandy – and that was a particularly decent brand. Shame to mix it with poison hemlock, really.’ She laughs. ‘It grows on the island all year round here. Ingested it attacks the nervous system, causes severe seizures and convulsions, cardiovascular collapse.’

Shock pumps through Alice’s body. ‘You poisoned him?’ Her voice cracks, eyes drifting to the ventriloquist dolls. ‘You made him look like a puppet.’

‘Of course! I packed the brandy in his holdall, though I didn’t know when it would happen exactly. In fact, I was praying it would be sooner than it was, but hey ho.’ She pauses, examines Alice’s face. ‘Oh come on, you detested him.’

‘So when you went to check on him, after we’d been to the cottage, he was—’

‘Dead – yes.’ She taps the knife against her chin. ‘Mother didn’t even know his name, but she’d written in her diary that he owned a tattoo business in Bristol. It was a long shot, the chances of it still being there after all this time. But I travelled there, and there it was. Mum also drew his rose tattoo in her diary, wrote that it was on his lower arm. It meant I knew immediately when I’d found the right man.

‘Mitch’s rather naïve sister, who worked as a tattooist in the shop, pointed out his photo on the wall, told me her brother was a fan of LARPing. I went along to a festival she told me he would be attending.’ She bites down hard on her lower lip. ‘The rest is history.’ She wiggles her head, as though proud of herself, her ponytail swinging. ‘I admit I hadn’t factored in that I would want to heave my guts up each time he touched me. Though I think you’ll agree, I made a good job of masking my disgust.’

‘And the Winslows? You killed them too?’