‘Brooke, I really need you now. The family is one fucked-up mess, and I’m wandering around like a tit in a trance. Just like you, I can’t get Kendall off my mind. But it’s you I’m seriously worried about now. Me and you need to find out who did this, and I can’t do it alone, Brooke. I really do need your help.’ There was a prolonged silence, and Poppy looked at her sister and wondered how it was possible for families to grow apart so easily, with each member living their own agenda in life.

The quilt suddenly peeled back, and Brooke blinked furiously. ‘I can’t, Poppy. I can’t bear to even leave this room. I’m so terrified. All I keep seeing is those men. It was awful, Poppy, and I bet it was the same ones who did it to Kendall. But she didn’t escape, she’s dead . . . But what I want to know is why? Why is this happening? I feel like they’re out there preying on us. You mustn’t go out alone, or you’ll be next!’

Poppy stared at an almost virtual mirror image of herself. They weren’t identical, but anyone could see they were twins. They didn’t look like either Alastair or Rebecca, though.

‘No, I won’t. But listen. It was purely coincidental.’

She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, yet she couldn’t be like Brooke, shutting herself away from the world.

‘We can beat them!’

Those words should have been well intended and a comfort to her sister, but whatever it was that Poppy was selling, Brooke wasn’t at all interested. Instead, Brooke just slouched her shoulders and scowled at her sister. ‘We can’t, Poppy. They were . . . Oh my God, I just can’t bear to think about it.’

Poppy decided to change tack. ‘Brooke, I know what happened to you was bad, really bad, but you’re alive. Kendall’s not. I need you to remember that, okay? All the time you stay in your room, those bastards are still out there. The police are doing nothing. Don’t you find that fucking strange?’

Brooke didn’t find anything strange about it at all. She was still so brutally traumatized and gave her sister short shrift. ‘I don’t know anything anymore, Poppy. I really don’t know what to think. And worse, I don’t even know who I am.’

Like a grown woman, Poppy rose from the edge of the bed. ‘Well, I do, Brooke. I know who you are. You’re a brave person who’s been seriously let down by our fucking parents. Now, drink this hot chocolate and eat some food. We’re going to make a pact . . . just you and me.’

Brooke felt her eyes filling up again. ‘Did you remember to put sprinkles on the top?’

Poppy chuckled. ‘Yeah, kiddo, just how you like it.’