She allowed the hot water to pound her body, her skin prickling as though a hundred tiny needles were perforating it – it was painful at first, until the numbness came.

Now both her mind and body were numb.

She cupped the water in her hands, then swished it over her face.

Blood, pooling.

Grass, cool and tickly beneath her feet.

‘Can I blag one of them off you?’

Icy cold.

Fear.

A face at the window.

SHE KNOWS.

The last two words screamed inside her head. Had they been her words, ones she had spoken? She was sure it was her knowledge, her fear she felt when the images came to her from that night, the night of her party.

Shit.

Tiff had said she’d seen her from the window, talking to someone in the beer garden. Now Louisa had a flash of memory of seeing her at the window, followed by the words: she knows.

Louisa stepped out of the shower and, grabbing a towel, gave herself a brusque drying and then sat on the bed, shoulders slumped. Her mind had been allowing these brief visions; memories, whatever they were, yet they weren’t enough – it was like trying to do a dot-to-dot in the dark with half the dots missing. Impossible. She understood that her brain had been keeping things in another compartment, protecting her from the atrocities of her decisions, her actions. But why couldn’t she remember everything in its entirety now, when she needed to – wanted to?

She’d have to delve into the darkness, to the depths of her consciousness to find the memories, rearrange them. Make sense of them. But that was easier said than done. How was she going to achieve that, when for so many years she’d tried and failed? She hadn’t tried hypnosis before. It was a thought – although it would have to be some kind of self-hypnosis. She couldn’t very well go to a professional, allow someone else to unlock her past, from back then, or more recently. It’d have to be done alone. Louisa made a mental note to search the internet later on, to find guidance on how to perform self-hypnosis. At this point, nothing was off the table.

The burning question for the moment was why Tiff had a photo of Melissa and how they’d ever managed to know each other without Louisa’s awareness.

‘Mum! Mum!’

Louisa jumped off the bed and ran to the bedroom door. ‘What’s the matter?’ she called down the stairs. She didn’t need an answer. Standing just inside the hallway was Oliver.

‘I wanted to check how you were doing,’ he said, the smile faltering as he took in her towel.