But then . . . how much did they really know about Harlan? About his background, about the sort of family he originally came from? Nothing, really. At the time, they had just been delighted to have a son. Nula because it meant she wouldn’t have to endure any more pregnancies – which turned out to be not the case, anyway – and Charlie because it somehow seemed to prove him as a man, the stupid prick. And for a while, they had been happy. Maybe Harlan was not the sort of boy Charlie would have wished for – he wasn’t a rough-and-tumble type, after all – but he was a son, to train up in the businesses, both legitimate and otherwise, to carry on after Charlie was gone.

But then had come Jake. Their real son. Nula thought about it all for a long time. And then, finally, sick at heart but sure of purpose, she knew what she had to do.

52

‘What the hell do you want?’ snapped Chrissy’s father when Nula rapped at the Foster family door.

The Fosters were pillars of the village’s tight-knit community, the very definition of respectability. When Chrissy had got sacked from her job as au pair to these brash newcomers with their sudden disastrous news, the whole village had rallied around the Fosters for support. Them, not the Stones, not the ones who were really suffering.

Of course Charlie’s reaction had upset everyone. He was going to sue, he was going to see Chrissy in jail, she’d murdered his son in the night . . . Christ, how he’d ranted and raved. Told everyone in earshot that she was a bitch, a cow, and she was going to pay for this.

And now Ben Foster, his long, tanned farmer’s face twisted with temper, was about to shut the door of his eighteenth-century cottage in Nula’s face.

‘Wait!’ Nula surged forward. ‘I just want to talk to Chrissy, that’s all.’

‘Well she doesn’t want to talk to you,’ he said.

The door was closing.

‘Please, I need your help!’ said Nula desperately.

Ben Foster hesitated.

‘Look – I need to speak to her. Not to accuse her of anything, don’t think that. I want to hear her version of what happened that night. That’s all.’

‘The police already questioned her. She was terribly upset by it all.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. But . . . can’t I speak to her? For five minutes? Please?’

Now the door opened a fraction more. Foster’s face was stern, his eyes unfriendly. ‘I don’t want her upset. And she has been. She’s blamed herself, and that’s not the case. This sort of thing can happen. It’s awful, but it does.’

‘I’m not looking to lay blame on anyone,’ said Nula. ‘We’ve all been so gutted by this. It makes a person half-crazy. I’m sure you can understand that?’