‘There you go,’ the nurse said with a smile. ‘If you’re okay, I’ll leave you in peace. Professor Ludlow will be around in an hour or so. As soon as he gives the go-ahead, we can disconnect the monitor and the intravenous line.’

Molly checked her phone. There were several messages from Freya and Remi; she read them quickly and sent off a message to both with a lame excuse about letting the phone go flat and misplacing the charger to explain her unusual absence. They wouldn’t question it.

There were a couple of missed calls from Stuart shortly after one o’clock on Friday and a text message sent at one thirty. Assume something has come up, surprised not to be able to get hold of you. Hope all is okay, will try to ring again later.

She sent a brief answer. Sorry. Something unexpected happened. Will explain in a day or two.

Throwing the phone on the bed, she stared across the room. Not one text from Amelia, not one call to ask why she hadn’t turned up in O’Dea’s. The police were going to speak to her. Maybe she’d confess that she was responsible, it would all be over, and Molly could go back to her mundane existence. After the last few days, she’d never knock mundane and conventional again.

She shuffled in the bed. There was no pain really, but everything ached. Including her head. Amelia might have been mixed up with Lucien Pleasant, she might even be having an affair with Jack, but did Molly really think she was capable of trying to kill her? And anyway, why would she want to? ‘Arrgh,’ she groaned, resting her head back. Perhaps it would be best if she left the detective work to the detectives.

She managed, despite everything, to fall asleep.

She was woken by the sound of the door opening, followed by footsteps and the nurse’s voice asking if she was okay.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said automatically. She shook off a momentary disorientation, her eyes flitting over the faces of the group of people who surrounded her bed. Junior doctors, she guessed, as an older man stepped forward to introduce himself.

Professor Ludlow was a small chubby man with a round, smiling countenance that made him look like a children’s party entertainer rather than an eminent consultant. He spoke with her for a few minutes, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘We are happy that you’ve made a complete recovery from your concussion,’ he said. ‘You may go home whenever you wish.’ With a final polite smile, he and his entourage swept out of the room, leaving a nurse behind to remove the intravenous line, leads and monitor. Molly instantly missed its reassuring beep.