I re-read the article, realizing that the implication is that Lillian Sparks was suffering some sort of postnatal depression. Tara’s confession springs to mind and I shake my head. I don’t feel like that, I can cope fine with everything. My house is clean and tidy, my children are well cared for, I get out of bed in the mornings no matter how tired I am. Something flutters in my belly when I think of Naomi’s message to Rav, the way she told him something ‘just isn’t quite right’. There is something dangerous in my house, but it is not me.

I don’t want to read the article again, the words leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. Instead, I search for Tara on Facebook, clicking on her completely open profile. She has hidden nothing, her page filled with photos of herself with the boys and Karl. She tags herself everywhere she goes, giving the entire world a run-down of her day.

My phone pings on the table next to me, startling me, and I switch it on to silent, not wanting to be disturbed. Glancing down I see Tara’s name on the screen, her unread text waiting, and I feel a hot prickle of guilt before I squash it down, telling myself I have nothing to feel guilty for, everybody snoops on Facebook. I carry on looking through Tara’s photos, stopping as I reach one with Miranda and a couple of the other women from the baby group. The caption is, ‘BIRTHDAY DRINKS AT MINE WITH THE GIRLS’. They are all sitting cross-legged on the floor, a drink in their hands, smiling at the camera. All except Miranda, who looks mildly terrified. One of the women has moved at the time of the picture being taken, her face a blur, although there is something familiar about the way she is sitting. But it isn’t the women who have caused me to pause. In the background, there is a blue-grey spiral of smoke coming from the table behind them. My first thought is cigarette smoke, or maybe incense, but the plume is too thick. Frowning at the screen, I enlarge the photo, zooming in on the smoke. It’s not a cigarette, it’s a bunch of sage. A cleansing stick. Why would Tara have a cleansing stick burning, if she doesn’t believe in witchcraft? I check her profile page, just in case her birthday is on Halloween, a perfect excuse for one of the women to burn sage at her birthday for a joke. But Tara’s birthday is in July.