At the sound of the jailer approaching with his keys, Ann’s face crumpled and she rushed to give her baby one last kiss. She shut her eyes and inhaled his sweet innocent smell before turning back to her cold, bare bed.

‘Thank you, Isabella. You have been a friend for the past year.’

‘God bless you, Ann,’ said the Countess, as she took the sleeping baby out of the squalid prison cell. Once they reached the street she paused to take a long, deep breath, happy to be in the fresh air once more.

‘Magdalen Yard Road, number seventy-three,’ she told her driver, stepping into the cool air of the carriage. She peered into the baby’s face and, as the carriage began rattling over the cobbled streets of Dundee, he opened his eyes and gazed directly up at her. She tickled his chin and smiled. ‘It’s all right, little one, you’re going home now.’

CHAPTER 58

Chapter 58

2016

‘I just keep thanking God that Mrs C gave you my mobile number. She’s never done that before.’

‘I had to tell her what I was about to tell you, Fiona,’ Sam said. ‘It was the only way.’

Dot shook her head and poured the three of them more tea. ‘So are you ready to tell us about Pete’s past?’

‘Yeah, the truth.’ Fiona finished her cake. ‘I mean, how could I have lived with someone all that time and not had a clue who he really was?’

‘Well, I mean, more will come out at the trial, if they let him out of the secure hospital.’

‘Hang on.’ Dot raised a finger. ‘He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after that hellish afternoon. Why did that never happen in Australia? There must be a similar law there?’

‘He didn’t have to be, his psychosis was always under control. He’d been on Risperidone since he was nineteen, when he had the first symptoms – aggression, agitation, hearing voices tell him to do stuff.’ Sam sank back into the sofa. ‘The week after Mum died, he drowned my pet rabbit and told me she’d told him to do it. That’s when the docs got involved.’

‘So did the meds stabilise him?’

‘Yeah, he was on them every day. I can’t believe you lived with him for three years and didn’t know.’

‘I knew he took pills every day but he said they were for his high blood pressure. Why would I question that?’

‘And you never thought anything was, you know, not right, or a bit weird?’