‘Please,’ she managed to say through lips that felt a little numb. ‘Ask that woman if she knows why Michael did what he did. He didn’t like heights, you see.’

The young man flinched and stepped back abruptly, and Frank led her to the car.

Once she had been bundled inside, she accepted the bottle of water proffered by Frank and took a long drink, despite her shaking hand.

The man was looking back over his shoulder and turning a key in the lock, his expression troubled. He met Irene’s eye again and quickly looked away, before disappearing inside.

Irene wondered how much he really knew about the person who shared his house. She’d never met anyone – in all her seventy-three years – who had given her such a chilling feeling as that woman.

ELLIOTT

The air in the hallway felt cold and I could smell something ‘off’ from the bin in the kitchen. There was also another, sour smell that I recognized as sick.

‘Anya?’ I yelled and quickly began to look in each room. There was no sign of her and I had the ridiculous notion that she was hiding from that old lady in a cupboard or something. I was shaking from seeing her – Michael Copeland’s mother, for sure – on our doorstep and couldn’t imagine how Anya must be feeling.

I heard a faint sound from upstairs, and took the stairs two at once, calling her name the whole time.

I found her slumped in front of the toilet, her skin pale and covered with a sheen of sweat. Her eyes were brimming, and her fringe clung to her damp forehead.

She began to cry, pitifully, as she gazed up at me from the cold, tiled floor.

‘Oh God,’ she sobbed, ‘did you see that? Did you hear it?’

I crouched down and put my arms around her, saying, ‘Hey, hey,’ in a soothing voice as she began to cry in more earnest. She clung to my neck as I helped her to her feet and she buried her face into my neck until I could feel her tears beginning to seep inside the top of my T-shirt.

‘Let me brush my teeth,’ she said finally, in a muffled, snotty voice. ‘Feel disgusting.’

She brushed her teeth and used mouthwash, avoiding my eye the whole time. Her eyes were glassy now and she seemed far away.

‘I’m just going to lie down for a bit, Ells,’ she said, her voice croaky. ‘I’ve been feeling really shit all day and then that mad woman turned up at our door.’

I simply nodded and went through with her to the bedroom. ‘Mad woman’ seemed a bit harsh, in the circumstances. What I’d seen was someone who looked absolutely hollowed out from grief and confusion. And we knew things she didn’t and never could.