‘I knew about your arrangement with Julie, you bloody fool,’ she sneers. ‘About Jason. Did you honestly not wonder why she kept coming back to you for more money? Because I told her to.’

‘You… blackmailed me?’ Robert’s voice is shocked.

‘Ha! I’d say it was you who was doing the blackmailing, wouldn’t you? Buying people’s silence, paying people off. Threatening them. What did you tell Sarah’s mother when she was forced to leave the child you undoubtedly refused to acknowledge on your doorstep?’

‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ said Robert, his tone agitated.

‘You will damn well listen.’ My mother’s heels are sharp against the wooden study floor, her words… incomprehensible.

Sarah? But… she’s my twin. We were inseparable. Two sides of the same person.

Do you think that’s why he killed me? Sarah’s voice is small, tremulous.

I am too shocked to answer. Too shocked to breathe.

‘How old was she? Eighteen? Nineteen?’ My mother snatches me back to the conversation unfolding behind the closed study door. The conversation I’m not supposed to hear. The conversation she should have had with me! ‘What did you threaten her with, Robert, after compensating her for ruining her life? She didn’t sign one of your silly contracts, did she? Did you tell her to keep quiet or she would never work again? Did you threaten to tell her parents?’

‘Diana, you need to stop this,’ Robert says tightly. ‘You’re upset. You need to think about what you’re—’

‘Upset? I’m not upset.’ My mother laughs derisively. ‘I don’t care. I never cared. Do you honestly think I was sitting at home nursing a broken heart while you were entertaining other women? I’ve been seeing Michael for years.’

Silence for a second. Loud. Ominous. Then, ‘You’re… sleeping with someone else?’ says Robert, sounding choked. ‘Since when?’

‘Oh, before we were married,’ says my mother, her tone almost flippant. ‘And after we were married. Now.’

Cold trepidation prickling my skin, sweat wetting my armpits, I step closer, press my forehead against the door.

‘And you stayed with me?’ Robert emits an incredulous laugh.

‘Played dutiful wife!’ my mother counters. ‘Cleaned for you, picked up after you, put up with you. And every single day was sheer—’

‘Spent my money, lived a life of luxury,’ Robert seethes, his tone menacing, dangerous. ‘Stole my money! And all the while you were fucking—’

‘She’s not your daughter!’ my mother bellows.

It falls silent again. A silence so charged I can feel the static crackling between them as I flail to grasp the enormity of what she’s just said.

‘Michael is Karla’s father. Do you understand?’ My mother goes on, forcing the shock hard home.