‘No, sorry, it’s not that she doesn’t – it’s just always seemed like she enabled some of it. She hides him away and he doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. I don’t know. Not my place.’ I’m quiet, and even Peyton, who had been ravaging the box of crackers, stops and chews with the slow, deliberate contemplation of a last meal. ‘Sorry. This is dark stuff for the first day. I don’t really even know what I’m talking about, to be honest.’

I shrug. ‘I like the dark stuff.’

A knock on the door. Sylvia pokes her head in. ‘Morning, girls.’

Peyton tenses and shoots me a furtive glance. I smile despite myself. ‘Morning,’ I say for the both of us.

‘Nice to see you, sweetheart,’ Sylvia says to Peyton. ‘How was the trip over?’

Peyton says, ‘Not bad,’ stiffly.

‘And Mona? How was your exploration?’

‘Informative.’

‘Hey, Sylvia, can I get a new room-mate?’ Peyton asks. ‘This one’s a dud.’

‘Don’t mind her,’ Sylvia says to me, faux-exasperated. ‘All bark.’

‘I beg you mind me!’

We say bye to Sylvia and, once she’s left, Peyton shuts the door with a quiet click, turns to me slowly and puffs her lips. ‘There’s no way she heard me say that stuff. Right?’

I shake my head with a furrowed brow. ‘Not with your sensible volume.’

‘Ah, well.’

Peyton regards the pile of clothes in her suitcase, then looks me up and down. There’s a practical sensation from the ripple of her gaze that shocks me the rest of the way awake, if I wasn’t already before and it makes me want to say, ‘You can have the bed. If you want. I don’t mind.’

Peyton withdraws in what seems like surprise. I might be imagining it but I swear she blushes. ‘No, I – sorry. It’s fine. I was just giving you a hard time.’

‘No kidding.’

She laughs a little. It’s not at me this time. Shakes her head. She’s glowing a bit, there in the morning sun, skin dewy and ripe, like something newly grown. ‘Come on, Harvard girl,’ she finally says, ‘help me unpack.’

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

I had planned to go to the police station today. I have no interest in telling this to Peyton, who will, if her past reactions towards me doing literally anything are to go by, lose her mind with ridicule and delight.

Instead I leave in a sort of faux-disinterested way around one – the latest I can leave it, because the station’s website says they close for public enquiries at two on Saturdays.