At the time I’d almost laughed at my own paranoia about it all. In fact, I had been annoyed about the responsibility being foisted upon me, when Dylan wasn’t even a friend of my daughter’s. His and Lottie’s mother was a glamorous and rather flaky woman called Annabel, an actress with a tendency to dump her children on others, even with Dylan’s extra needs. I know that my daughter had registered these ungenerous thoughts, spoken aloud over a Pimm’s at a summer party. She missed nothing. So I must share some blame. That’s what I have always told myself.

The key was in a ceramic bowl on the kitchen surface. Only the three people who lived in the house knew about the key.

I called Patrick into the kitchen with an agonized sort of cry and he rushed in, believing I had hurt myself. In fact, he almost looked annoyed that I hadn’t. I suppose, after a horrible day, it felt like unnecessary drama for me to squawk like that.

I told him I had seen our daughter leave the room, apparently in a mild huff, then come back and plunge her hand into the crisps. I’d registered it as strange at the time, because she had complained that these allergy-free crisps weren’t as good as the Hula Hoops she had requested.

It was shortly after then that Dylan had his anaphylactic reaction. I told Patrick that we should have checked the bowl while cleaning up and he looked at me with an expression I had never seen before. It was horrible. Cold. Almost as though he hated me.

He said, ‘Julia, you can’t be suggesting what I think?’

I told him it was the only explanation. He didn’t seem to have another to offer, but simply said, ‘Shame on you, Julia. What a thing to say.’

He has always been that way about her. He refuses to accept things, you see.

Patrick’s sister Bridget – a no-nonsense bull of a woman – once said of my daughter that she was a ‘monster’ after some incident with her son when Anya was six. The look in her eyes when she said it was something I never wanted to see again. We decided to cut contact with her after that.

Sometimes I think about those words spoken by Bridget.

Look, you might judge me. But it is only by understanding my daughter – all the complex parts of her – that I can truly keep her safe.

ELLIOTT

Anya’s brow creased as she took the piece of paper from my hands, eyes flickering as she quickly scanned it. I think I saw the fleeting flare of shock but couldn’t be sure.

‘His mother kept this?’ she said.

I watched her carefully.