‘I don’t think it’s particularly deep. But it did bleed a lot,’ he says. ‘It seems okay now and she’s sleeping. I think it will do her good. She’s getting herself so wound up, which is understandable, but you know, it’s not good for her.’

I raise an eyebrow, wonder if Alex does know just how bad things can get when his wife gets wound up. Does he know what she is capable of?

‘I think we all need to keep a special eye on her,’ I say. ‘She’s very vulnerable, isn’t she?’

The look on Alex’s face tells me this is news to him. I wonder if I’ve said too much.

‘In what way?’ he asks.

‘You mean you don’t know?’ Kathleen says incredulously. ‘She must’ve told you.’

Alex bristles. ‘If she’d told me I wouldn’t be asking questions now.’

‘Your wife was a very troubled young woman,’ Kathleen says. ‘But maybe you should ask her about it. I don’t think it’s our place to say.’

Alex looks to me. ‘What does she mean?’ he asks.

‘As she says, it’s something you probably need to talk to Heidi about. And, you know, it was a long time ago and she’s been stable for a good while now.’

He looks alarmed. ‘Stable?’

‘That probably makes it sound worse than it was,’ I say, aware that it was actually that bad. ‘She struggled a lot, you know, after her mother died. It was to be expected, I suppose. And maybe we should have seen the signs faster, but she was just so angry and paranoid and didn’t want to talk to any of us …’

The last bit wasn’t exactly true. She may well have wanted to talk to us, but we – and especially me – didn’t want to talk to her. She was a freak who’d stolen my father. I thought he deserved the hard time she put him through.

Just as I think she deserves to have that stupid doll of hers smashed to pieces. I’m not proud of myself for that, but it was either that or take my anger, grief and fear out on her.

Chapter Thirty

Heidi

Then

The poor pet. Is it any wonder she’s acting up? Losing her mother so young. Joe’s a saint taking her on. Honestly. No one would blame him if he just walked away.

The whispers from the mammies in the school yard weren’t long in reaching my ears. And acting up? I wasn’t doing anything. I was just wandering around the playground on my own, rattling a stick against the railings.

Sure, when Kathleen had called for me to come on now, it was time to go home, I’d pretended not to hear her, even though her voice was high and scratchy and everyone else seemed to have gone quiet.

But that wasn’t acting up.

I just didn’t want to go home. Truth was, I didn’t know what home was any more. All I knew was that the only place I’d ever remembered living my whole entire life didn’t feel so safe and cosy now.