By now it was four in the morning. I returned to my bedroom and lay down, desperate to drift into sleep. But it wouldn’t come. My heart began to beat against my chest as I realised that with Pa’s passing, I could no longer use him as an excuse to hide here. It might even be that Atlantis would be sold. Pa had certainly never mentioned anything to me about what would happen after his death. And as far as I knew, he’d said nothing to any of my sisters either.

Until a few hours ago, Pa Salt had been omnipotent, omnipresent. A force of nature that had held us all securely aloft.

Pa used to call us his golden apples. Ripe and perfectly rounded, just waiting to be plucked. And now the bough had been shaken, and all of us had been sent tumbling to the ground, with no steady hand to catch us as we fell.

I heard someone knocking at my front door and stumbled groggily from the bed to answer it. In desperation a few hours earlier, as dawn was breaking, I’d searched for the sleeping pills I’d been prescribed years ago and taken one. As I glanced at the clock in the hall and saw it was past eleven, I wished that I hadn’t succumbed.

As I opened the door, Marina’s concerned face appeared from behind it. ‘Good morning, Maia. I tried your landline and mobile and there was no answer, so I came to check that you’re all right.’

‘Sorry, I took a pill and it knocked me out. Come in,’ I said, embarrassed.

‘No, I’ll let you wake up properly, then perhaps when you’ve taken a shower and got dressed, you could come over to the house? Tiggy called to let me know she’s arriving at around five tonight. She managed to get in touch with Star, CeCe and Electra, so they’re on their way home too. Any news from Ally?’

‘I’ll check my mobile and if not, I’ll call her again.’

‘Are you all right? You don’t look well at all, Maia.’

‘I’ll be fine, Ma, really. I’ll be over later.’

I closed the front door, and scuttled into the bathroom to throw some cold water on my face to jog me awake. As I looked in the mirror, I could see why Marina had asked if I was all right. Lines had appeared overnight around my eyes and there were huge blueish marks underneath them. My normally shiny, dark brown hair hung lank and greasy around my face. And my skin, usually an unblemished honey-brown that needed little make-up, looked puffy and pale.

‘Hardly the beauty of the family this morning,’ I muttered to my reflection, before searching in the tangled bedclothes for my mobile. Eventually finding it under the duvet, I saw there had been eight missed calls. I listened to my sisters’ voices, with their varying messages of disbelief and shock. The only sister who had still not responded to my SOS was Ally. Yet again I spoke to her voicemail and asked her to call me urgently.