Margot looks stricken. She holds out her arms and Ethan wriggles into them. She hugs the little boy to her and he snuggles against her knitted jumper. The change in Margot is immediate. The hard exterior she’s worn with me dissolves into something soft and maternal as she kisses the top of Ethan’s dark head. It reminds me again of when we were kids. Margot always made time for us, sitting with us around this very table, helping us with our homework, or letting us bake a cake – which usually ended up tasting rank. Once, during a heatwave, she showed us how to make lemonade.

‘The kettle’s just boiled,’ says Margot to Adam, her cheek resting on Ethan’s hair.

Adam goes to the kettle to make himself a coffee. I don’t know what to say so I pick up my cup again, sip my tea and wait. The tension feels too thick and I know it’s down to my presence. What I can’t understand is why. He doesn’t know I’m a journalist yet. Is this what he’s always like? Or is grief making him act this way?

‘Have they all gone?’ Margot asks Adam, as he pulls out a chair next to me. His hands are red and raw as he cups the mug. It’s unusually cold for March, even with all the rain we’ve been having.

‘The vultures?’

Margot nods, not looking at me.

‘Yep. Thank God. I don’t know what you said to make them bugger off. Maybe they’ve gone home for their tea.’

‘Jessica got rid of them for us.’

Adam turns to me, expression quizzical. ‘And how did you manage that?’

I push down my unease. ‘I’m a journalist too,’ I say, in a voice that belies my apprehension.

‘Of course you fucking are!’ he says quietly, menacingly, into his mug.

‘Adam,’ Margot warns, ‘little ears.’ She covers Ethan’s with her hands to make her point. I can’t believe Heather has chosen to spend her life with this bullish man. She’d had a huge crush on River Phoenix when we were teenagers: she’d imagined him to be sensitive and artistic. The fact he died young only romanticized him in her eyes. Adam couldn’t be more different.

His eyes flash at Margot. ‘Why have you let her in, Marg, when she’s one of them?’

‘I’m not here to do any harm,’ I insist. ‘Heather was my friend.’

He glares at me. ‘You lot never print the truth. You twist everything and you’ll twist this.’ He turns back to Margot. ‘Don’t trust her. You can’t trust any of them.’