“Why did you grab me like that?”

“I thought you were a prowler.”

“But you must’ve seen that I wasn’t in bed? Dear God, the baby! I hope the baby’s all right after a fright like that.”

“I didn’t know you’d be outside,” he says. “Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.”

He reels out a list of flavors—jasmine, ginger, peppermint—and so forth, as if that will make amends for the fright he just gave me.

“Anything. I’ll drink anything.”

“What were you doing outside?” he asks.

“I needed air. I needed to think.”

“Half naked?”

I shrug.

“For God’s sake, Marie. Anything could’ve happened! Someone has been leaving threatening notes. We’ve had two attempted break-ins.”

“I wondered if you’d made the second one up,” I say. “To get me to come over and help you.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

Put like that, why did I? I’m having real trouble making sense of everything.

“Camilla tried to break in, before she let it be known she’d moved back. I don’t think there is a someone other than the poison-pen author and flower-sender. Regardless, though, let’s tell the police,” I say. “What if someone was after Nina? What if they’re after me now instead? What if I’ve made a mistake in believing that it was Camilla? What if it’s all linked?”

“That’s a lot of speculation. I’m reluctant for obvious reasons,” he says. “But sadly, we can’t rule it out indefinitely. However, logically, if ‘they’—” he mimes quotation marks “—were after Nina, then surely they’d be after Camilla now, too?”

“Who knows, she’s never mentioned anything,” I say. “She’s hooked up with Greg from the book group, so she’s not alone at the moment.”

“Greg? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if this is something to do with the past, they wouldn’t be after you.”

“Unless...Camilla is behind all this? She’s desperate for me to keep quiet. Perhaps she thought that Nina had already told me. Perhaps she’s got Greg in on it, too. He’s a private investigator and a security guard, and Lord knows what else. He could be a hit man on the side.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous. Camilla wouldn’t want to harm your baby,” he says. “If anything, it’s the best thing that could have happened. The chances of you speaking out now are so much less. You stand to lose out, too.”

He’s right.

And in a really perverse, childish, twisted way, I feel moments of jealousy that I was left out of the secret. Like I was a child to be managed, someone who couldn’t handle the truth.

I don’t want my child tainted with a history of murder, manslaughter or whatever it is. Or Nina’s. Or Camilla’s and therefore Charlie’s. Yet as distasteful as it is, I have to embrace the secret and find a way to live with it. I’m a part of it now. Just like Nina, Camilla and Stuart. And I will find a way. Once I’ve spoken to Deborah. I need to piece everything together in my own way, in my own time if I’m to take such a monumental burden on board.