I said nothing, edging away from the darkness around this woman. Nora must not have seen her mother since the fire – 1992. Her mother was sure she had caused the fire, burned the house down, killed her father and brother. If it was true – and yes, wasn’t it weird, Nora being outside at such an hour, getting her beloved dogs to safety and no one else? – that meant she would stop at nothing. Not even hurting a child. My hands went to my bump again, the fragile life I was carrying inside of me. What had I done? What was I bringing this baby into? For the first time, I imagined talking to him or her. Trying to explain the terrible mess I’d made. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. Would they come to hate me, as Nora and her mother hated each other?

Dr Holt appeared in the doorway, holding a manila file. ‘They let me look at her records,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s doped up to the eyeballs. Apparently she had a full-on breakdown after the fire, and she was on some pretty heavy-duty medication before that, anyway.’

‘Was she – did she have psychosis?’ I whispered. I had forgotten the correct way to say it, nowadays.

He frowned in surprise. ‘How did you guess?’

Maddy

Maddy

People thought it was so glamorous, living abroad. Her friends back home, a few years out of uni and struggling with internships and shifts in Starbucks, regularly expressed their envy via WhatsApp emoji strings. You live on the Costa del Sol, you lucky cow. Meanwhile I live with my mum in Walsall!!!!

Maddy lived with her mum too, and her dad, in the English pub they’d bought five years ago in La Tornada, a small Spanish town that was known for its sizeable British population. The pub, sitting between a tapas bar and a sangria place, sold fish and chips, chicken korma, English ales. She was constantly surprised that anyone would prefer this to croquettes, paella and churros, but every day in high season came tourists complaining about the lack of burgers in the Spanish restaurants, throwing themselves with relief on the pub’s laminated menus.