‘Yeah, but . . . they didn’t find anything wrong with Jake’s death, did they. They said it was cot death. Awful, but it does happen.’

‘Belle – what if Harlan smothered him?’ shot out of Milly’s mouth. She’d been thinking it for weeks, and it made sense. She thought of the agony of sitting through Jake’s funeral, the pitifully small coffin up there at the front of the church. It haunted her. Her little brother, gone, never to return. ‘What if Harlan killed the baby? And what if he left that skateboard on the stairs deliberately, knowing Mum was always first down in the mornings? What if he’s been playing that tape to make her go crazy?’

Belle turned her head and looked at Milly.

‘We got to tell someone about this,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but who? Dad would go mental if I said any of this to him. Mum was always on at him about Harlan. It upset him. He couldn’t take it, not after losing Jake like that. You know what boys are like. Well, men. He’d flip if I started doing the same as she did, saying these things. He’d think I was going crazy too.’

‘She’s not crazy. Is she? Just sort of depressed.’

‘Yeah. I shouldn’t say that. It’s rotten.’ Milly picked irritably at a hangnail. ‘But I keep hoping, you know?’ She gave Belle a desperate, trembling smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Sometimes she’s all right for months, then something hits her, some stress or worry or something – anything will do it, it seems to me – and then she goes into this nosedive, and then it’s off to the clinic to get treatment, and then she’s OK for a while. Until the next time. And every time I hope it’s the last, and . . .’ Milly bit her lip and stopped talking. There were tears in her eyes. She shook her head. ‘But it never is. And . . . in the end . . . I start to feel sort of depressed too. Like there is no hope. That it’s just wishful thinking that one day she’ll be well, be the person she used to be. They’re not even a couple any more, you know. I think it’s worn Dad out, all the worry of her being like she is. They sleep in separate rooms. They live separate lives.’

Belle reached out and rubbed Milly’s soft rounded shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, Mills. I didn’t know it was so bad. You know – maybe that’s it.’

‘What?’ Milly swiped at her eyes.

‘Maybe the person we should be talking to about all this is your mother.’

‘We can’t talk to her. She’s too fragile.’

‘I think we have to.’

Milly pondered this, frowning. ‘She’s coming home in time for Christmas,’ said Milly. ‘They say she’s a bit better now. That’s what they say.’