‘I’d say you knew more than that. I saw the photo. The one on the beach, the happy group of friends all together. You with your arm around Tiff. I need to call the police – sorry, Melissa.’ Louisa turned to the table, taking her handbag and rummaging for her mobile.

‘Wait.’ Melissa reached forwards, laying her hand on Louisa’s arm. ‘Aren’t you interested in knowing the truth?’

Louisa hesitated, a squirming sensation rippling up her arms. Of course she was interesting in knowing the truth. ‘Go on,’ she said, her eyes narrowing.

‘Tiff must’ve slipped. She was alive when I left. That’s the truth. We’d talked, finally put some ghosts to rest. It must’ve just been a terrible accident; it was nothing to do with me. Well, not directly. She’d been trying to protect you.’

‘Protect me?’

‘She said Oliver had been hassling her, telling her she had to be careful of you. He told her what you’d done.’

Louisa gasped. After everything he’d said about keeping quiet for both of their sakes, why would he then tell Tiff? It didn’t make sense. Annoyance pressed her lips together tightly. She stared at Melissa, trying to deduce if Oliver had told her what had happened too. Told her how Louisa had killed a woman and asked for his help to cover up what she’d done. A heat burned her cheeks.

‘What I’d done?’ Her mouth was dry, her throat raspy. The question hung suspended in the air for a moment, unanswered. But Melissa’s face darkened, her features losing their sharpness. She looked as though her mind had wandered some place else. When she spoke again, even her voice had altered, had lost its sweetness.

‘Oliver had always been so supportive.’ An abrupt burst of laughter snorted its way through Melissa’s nose. ‘So understanding. Helping me through my grief.’ The garden lamp suddenly illuminated, and the light caught her eyes, the tears sparkling just before they dropped down her cheeks.

‘Grief?’

‘Yes. He knew what we’d gone through when Helen ran away. The thought that she couldn’t talk to us, confide in her family, was always tough. Never finding her was excruciating. It killed my mum.’

Louisa’s stomach rolled; a darkness encroached her vision from the edges, moving its way across her eyes. She put a hand on the wooden table to steady herself – her legs twitching, the bones feeling as if they’d been liquefied.

‘Your sister looked just like you,’ Louisa said, her voice barely a whisper. It wasn’t a question.

She knew.

‘Yes, even though she was older by a few years, everyone always mistook us for one another. Thought we were twins.’