‘Nice,’ I said to Lena. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Skiing!’

‘Oh – Melissa!’ Lena looked shocked to see me – and then, frankly, shady, I thought. ‘All right for some, eh?’

‘Can I give her a message?’ The guy passed her some change. ‘She’s back in tomorrow.’

‘Oh, no worries. See you, darl.’ She chucked the change in the tip bowl and shot out.

I grabbed my own coffee, as burning hot as Lena’s face had been, and drove to Lynette’s house.

Cecilia hadn’t been to school, she’d said earlier on text, when, with shaking hands, I’d put my sim card into one of Rex’s old phones.

He didn’t think I knew he had a stash of them in his desk drawer. He didn’t think I knew where the key was. He didn’t know I was far more cunning than him. I just needed to find myself again.

I needed to find my will to live again – before it was too late.

‘I didn’t think I ought to make her, she’s been that upset,’ Lynette whispered when she let me in. She was a whispery sort of woman; a thin grey wisp of one really. Only her eyes were big and clear, like her daughter’s. ‘I let her stay home with me.’

She didn’t look like she could have borne the sturdy Cecilia.

But at least she’d had the sense to get out, before it was too late.

‘Ces,’ she called up the stairs. ‘Melissa’s here. You’re our second visitor this afternoon.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Pretty girl came to see Ces was OK. You go in.’ Lynette opened the door for me. ‘I’ll bring you some tea.’

‘Thanks.’

It was a fussy little front room I’d not seen before, old before its time, full of ornaments in a glass cabinet, like my auntie Bev had kept: shepherdesses and glass animals in Lynette’s case, whereas Bev’s had been West African figurines as black and glossy as her, beside brilliant red Oriental fans.

Cecilia sidled in. ‘Hey. It’s not my day at Dad’s, is it?’

‘Hey! No. I just thought I’d pop in.’ Oh dammit, I’m going to cry, I thought. Really wasn’t at my best today. ‘Just wanted to make sure you’re OK, Ces.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ She plonked herself in the armchair – but she didn’t look any more OK than I felt. ‘I guess.’

‘Good. And you’re—’ I cleared my throat – horribly dry suddenly. ‘’Scuse me. Just wanted to check – you’re sure that this is what you want?’

‘What?’

‘The whole Zach thing.’

‘Why are you saying that?’ For a moment she looked almost angry. ‘Are you trying to say I shouldn’t have told the police?’

‘God, no.’ I felt a shot of guilt. ‘It’s absolutely what you must do, if you – if that’s what he did. If he…’ We both gazed at the gas fire, flickering over fake coals. ‘If he touched you when you didn’t want him to.’

The girl wrenched her eyes off the fire and looked at me. ‘Like Dad does to you, you mean?’