Laurel took Daisy’s arm, casting around for a way to make the fourteen-year-old understand that Laurel had the experience to back up her claim. ‘I was bullied by two people when I was sixteen. One had a difficult mum.’ Everyone had known Amie’s mum’s reputation for starting vicious arguments in a village known for its friendliness. ‘The other had a controlling dad, who also might have set a bad example. But,’ she emphasised, ‘I knew his brother, too, and he was a nice guy. So, to me, that means people don’t have to follow the pattern set by their parents.’ She decided not to make an allowance for what Grady had told her, that Cormac Cassidy had treated Number One Son quite differently to Number Two.

‘But, like …’ Daisy heaved out a frustrated breath. ‘If Scarlett’s being bullied then I feel bad for her. It’s confusing.’

‘It is,’ Laurel allowed. ‘But just remember that it’s not your fault.’ They set off again for Zuzanna’s house and Daisy chattered about the Christmas wreaths she still had to complete before they could be delivered. She patted her stack of twenty-pound notes in a zipped pocket. ‘Loads of the stuff I use is free from Gabe’s place, too, so I’m getting, like, rich.’

Laurel laughed and made jokes about Daisy affording expensive Christmas presents, but at the same time she was going back over her own words. You’re not to blame … it’s not your fault. She’d never one hundred per cent accepted that about herself. She sighed.

When she’d received counselling a few years ago she’d felt clearer about things than she did now. Right had seemed right and wrong had seemed wrong. Laurel had chosen neither to confront the bullies nor to go to the police because that was what was best for her, not because the bullies deserved a break. It was black and white.

She hadn’t thought too much about Mac and Amie’s backstories but she realised now that there was a lot of grey in the world and that she was glad she had no idea where Amie Blunt was so she was unlikely to discover if, like Scarlett, she’d had her own bully. She did not want to feel forgiving thoughts towards Amie.

But didn’t that mean she was failing to let the past go, as Fliss advised? Conflicting feelings and thoughts preoccupied her as she saw Daisy into Zuzanna’s family home, a small brick-built place not far from The Angel. Then she turned and retraced her steps up Port Road.

The one thing she did know was that Grady Cassidy was innocent in all of this.

She strode up the silent drive of Mistletoe Cottage, lifted her hand and gave the front door a sharp rat-tat.

Chapter Thirteen