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Please, say they’d pumped her full of the good stuff.

* * *

Eight hours later, I sat at the dining table, my father at the end to my left and my mother opposite. Always one to seize on a retail opportunity, I’d heard her on the phone with her personal shopper earlier requesting a whole new wardrobe in black, and tonight she was channelling Morticia Addams.

“You should eat something, Augusta,” Father said. “It’s no good you starving.”

“It won’t hurt her to go without food for a few days,” Mother said. “She’s got reserves.”

“Carolyn...” he warned.

My mother dropped her eyes and spread fois gras onto a piece of toast, swaying slightly. She dropped it and her eyes went out of focus, probably as a result of whatever cocktail of drugs she’d washed down with half a bottle of Tanqueray when she got in.

“Fine. You heard your father. Eat your dinner.”

They say grief affects people in different ways. I’d been left hollow, while my father seemed somehow more human. My mother? Her humanity had evaporated completely, leaving only her inner bitch. She’d been sniping at both of us all afternoon.

“I’m not hungry.” I shoved my chair back, ignoring her instructions to come back as I stomped down the corridor. But where to? Not the annex, and I couldn’t go outside. I’d promised Ben.

The house I grew up in felt like a portal to hell as I walked the corridors, wanting to leave but at the same time, trapped. I ended up in my old bedroom, where a photo of Angie and me pinned to my corkboard sent me into a flood of tears again. Why? Why her? Ben said it was retaliation against him, but there was nobody to blame but the man who’d wielded the knife.

And I hoped Ben would make him pay.

15

“Miss, are you all right?”

Dorothy’s voice cut through my sniffles, and I looked up from my tear-soaked pillow.

“I hate this place,” I mumbled.

“Now, now, ma’am, I know you’ve had a shock.”

“It’s not just that. My mother’s like Satan in a dress.”

“Maybe a nice cup of tea would help?”

I noticed she didn’t disagree with me. “I’m not sure tea will be enough this time.”

“Why don’t you try?”

She held out a hand, a little uncertain, but I reached out and took it. Goodness knows, I could use a friend in this mess, and without Angie or Ben, the only people in the house apart from my parents were the staff.

“Shall I serve you some supper in the annex?” Dorothy asked.

“I can’t go back there. Not right now, with all Angie’s stuff there. Can I...? Can I come with you? To wherever you eat?”

“I’m not sure Mrs. Fordham—”

“Forget my mother.” I was certainly trying to. “I’m not going to tell her.”

Mary, the cook, and Bernie, the gardener, both did a double take when I walked in, and Mary shook her head. “You shouldn’t be here, ma’am.”

“I told her it was okay,” Dorothy said. “Mrs. F’s being impossible today. Did you order more gin?”

“Waitrose is delivering tomorrow at ten.” Mary got up and opened her arms. “You look like you need a hug.”

I began blubbing for the hundredth time that day all over her ample bosom, even more so when she stroked my hair like the grandma I’d never had. Father’s mother died before I was born, and my mother fell out with Grandma Margaret while I was still in nappies, according to local gossip—not that my parents ever confirmed the rumours of the argument.

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