‘One last thing,’ Maren said, stepping back inside the room. ‘Tom’s accountant flagged that the standing order for payment of your salary has been set up to someone called Lexi Ellis?’

I froze. My heart shot into my mouth and I tried not to look like I was going to puke. ‘Erm, yes,’ I stammered. ‘It’s my … business name.’

‘Oh. Right,’ she said. ‘Well, so long as it’s the correct account … Just be sure to let us know if you don’t receive payment at the end of the month. Oh, and another thing.’

I thought I was going to black out. I watched, rigid with terror, as she pulled the door behind her in case anyone else heard. She’d found out, I knew it. She was about to yell and scream at me. You’re an imposter! A cuckoo!

I deserved it. I deserved it all.

‘The basement,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s a no-go area.’

‘Basement?’

She nodded, then looked upset, her hands started to wring of their own accord. ‘It was … it was Aurelia’s room. Tom has insisted that we’re not to go in. So, even if you hear something down there, please remember to stay out.’

‘Oh. Of course.’

‘Wonderful.’ She visibly exhaled away the sadness triggered by the mention of Aurelia. Then, with a finger in the air: ‘See you in twenty-six minutes!’

I held up my own index finger. ‘See you then!’

She shut the door, and I lay down heavily on the bed, crumpled by relief. And when my heart stopped trying to punch its way through my ribcage I wondered if I’d heard her right, or if the new drugs I was on were every bit as brain-mangling as the last set.

Even if you hear something down there, please stay out.

Hear something?

What the hell was in that basement?

   7   

ARE YOU GOING TO DIE?

Now

My memories of that first month are pretty hazy. Suffice it to say that looking after two Tasmanian devils single-handedly and without any forewarning of their talent for finding sharp objects and scaling dangerous heights faster than lightning – or of their need for constant enraptured attention – was a baptism of boiling lava.

I spent a good part of the time seeking out ways to escape, and had I not been so leached of energy I might well have attempted to swim up the fjord all the way back to the airport. Caring for a ten-month-old was like trying to lasso a hurricane. I began to perceive parents as heroic but very deranged masochists. For the first three weeks ‘Daddy and Daughters Day’ did not happen, and the sacred promise of rest that I’d clung to all week popped like a leftover party balloon. Lack of sleep turned me into a cloud that wafted around after Gaia and Coco, whose combined energy could power South America for years to come.