In my head I promise her that this will be her legacy. That no one will ever find out that she knew what my parents had planned. I almost feel her little finger linking around mine.

A pinkie promise can’t be broke

Or you’ll disappear in a puff of smoke

This is my vow to you,

I’ll keep my promise through and through.

A whispered breath of thank you, against my neck.

I stumble back to my seat. The music begins. Annie promising us that the sun will come out tomorrow.

Later, the last of the mourners have retreated to the pub. George is waiting in the car to give me some space while I say my final goodbye. It’s hard to believe that Marie is under the heaped earth. Once more trapped in a small, dark, space.

‘Is this all my fault?’ Mum slips into the space beside me.

I am about to say yes when I turn my head and register the anguish on her face. She has lost a child. I can’t even begin to imagine.

‘I don’t know. There are many paths that lead us to the same place.’ Who’s to say Marie wouldn’t always have turned out an addict? I think of the small girl with her big dreams of stardom who just wanted to be universally adored and I want to weep.

‘I didn’t think Carly would miss this,’ Mum says.

‘Carly’s broken. She coped with so much. If it wasn’t for her…’

‘Tell me,’ Mum cut in.

‘What?’

‘Tell me what it was like. What you said about Marie’s stories. Her games. I want to hear it. All of it.’

So I tell Mum the details that she’d never wanted to know. That Carly escaped but she came back for me and Marie. She fought men three times as big and a hundred times scarier to set us free. That when we were cold and scared we sang and danced. Together.

‘When Marie was ill Carly kept her calm, held back her hair and cleaned her up. I was beside myself, thinking she was going to die, but Carly never showed us she was scared, not once. When the door was left open Carly could have left us, she’d have been quicker on her own, particularly after I twisted my ankle but she was always… there.’ Tears gather but I don’t let them fall. ‘She never let us down. Not once.’

‘I am sorry,’ Mum says. ‘For all of it… so is your dad.’

‘I don’t want to talk about him. How could you even bear to visit him? I know that you did.’

‘Because… Because he’s sorry. Because part of loving is forgiving and because—’

‘How could you forgive him?’

‘He’s forgiven you.’

‘For what?’

Mum holds my gaze. ‘For all those extra years he served in prison. For being beaten almost daily by the other inmates. For being put on the Sex Offenders Register, effectively ruining all his future job prospects, meaning he’ll always have to look over his shoulder.’