She was there, quite asleep, her arms and legs flung out, and I felt my pulse rate calm, just a little, but I had to check on the others before I could relax.

Down the corridor then, to the door marked Princess Ellie and Queen Maddie.

It was shut, and I turned the handle very softly, pushing gently. It was pitch-black inside without the night-light, the blackout curtains shutting out even the moonlight, and I cursed myself for forgetting to switch it on, but when my eyes got used to the darkness, I could hear the faint sound of snores, and I felt my breath coming a little more easily. Thank God. Thank God they were okay.

I tiptoed across the thick carpet and felt along the wall for the lead to the night-light, followed it back to the switch, and then I switched it on. And there they were, Ellie scrunched into a tight little ball as though trying to hide from something, Maddie scooched down under the duvet so that I could see nothing except her shape beneath the covers.

My panic calmed as I turned back to the door, laughing at myself for my paranoia.

And then . . . I stopped.

It was ridiculous, I knew that, but I just had to check, I had to see . . .

I tiptoed across the carpet and drew back the cover. To find . . .

. . . a pillow, pushed into the curved shape of a sleeping child.

My heart began to race sickeningly hard.

* * *

The first thing I did was check under the bed. Then all the cupboards in the room.

“Maddie,” I whispered, as loud as I dared, not wanting to wake Ellie but hearing the panicked urgency in my own voice. “Maddie?”

But there was no answering sound, not even a stifled giggle. Just nothing. Nothing.

I ran out of the room.

“Maddie?” I called louder this time. I rattled the handle of the bathroom, but it was unlocked, and when the door swung open I saw its emptiness, the moonlight streaming across the bare tiles.

“Maddie?”

Nothing in Sandra and Bill’s bedroom either, just the unruffled smoothness of the bed, the moonlit expanse of carpet, the white columns of the open curtains standing sentinel either side of the tall windows. I flung open the closets, but the faint illumination of the automatic lights showed nothing but neat rows of suits and racks of high heels.

“What is it?” Rhiannon’s sleepy voice came from upstairs. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“It’s Maddie,” I called up, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “She’s not in bed. Can you look upstairs? Maddie!”

Petra was stirring now, woken by my increasingly loud calls, and I heard her crotchety grumble, preparatory to a full-on wail, but I didn’t stop to comfort her. I had to find Maddie. Had she come downstairs to find me when I was with Jack? The thought gave me an unpleasant lurch, followed by another, even more unpleasant.

Had she— Oh God. Had she possibly followed me? I had left the back door unlocked. Could she have gone looking for me in the grounds?

Horrible visions ran through my mind. The pond. The stream. Even the road.

Ignoring Petra, I ran down the stairs, shoved my feet into the first pair of Wellingtons I found at the back door, and ran out into the moonlight.

The cobbled yard was empty.

“Maddie!” I called, full-throated, desperate now, hearing my voice echo from the stone walls of the stables and back to the house. “Maaaddie? Where are you?”

There was no answer, and I had a sudden, even more horrible thought, worse than the forest clearing, with the treacherously muddy pond.

The poison garden.

The poison garden left unlocked and unguarded by Jack Grant.

It had already killed one little girl.

Dear God, I prayed, as I began to sprint towards the back of the house, towards the path down through the shrubbery, my feet slipping in the too-big Wellingtons. Please let it not claim another.

But as I rounded the corner of the house, I found her.

She was lying crumpled facedown below my bedroom window, sprawled across the cobblestones in her nightdress, the white cotton soaked through and through with blood, so much blood I would never have imagined her small body could hold it all.

It ran across the cobbles like treacle, thick and sticky, slicking my knees as I knelt in it, clinging to my fingers as I picked her up, cradling her, feeling the birdlike fragility of her little bones, begging her, pleading with her to be okay.

But of course it was impossible.

She would never be okay again. Nothing would.

She was quite, quite dead.

The next few hours are the ones that the police have made me go over again and again, like nails scratching and scratching at a wound, making it bleed afresh every time. And yet, even after all their questions, the memories only come in snatches, like a night illuminated by flashes of lightning, with darkness in between.

I remember screaming, holding Maddie’s body for what felt like the longest time, until first Jack came, and then Rhiannon, holding a wailing Petra in her arms, almost dropping her when she saw the horror of what had happened.

I remember her wail, that awful sound, as she saw her sister’s body. I don’t think I will ever forget that.

I remember Jack taking Rhiannon inside and then trying to pull me away, saying she’s dead, she’s dead, we can’t disturb the body, Rowan, we have to leave her for the police, and I couldn’t let her go, I could only weep and cry.

I remember the flashing blue lights of the police at the gate, and Rhiannon’s face, white and stricken as she tried to comprehend.

And I remember sitting there, covered in blood on the velvet sofa, as they asked me what happened, what happened, what happened.

And I still don’t know.

* * *

I still don’t know, Mr. Wrexham, and that’s the truth.

I know what the police think, from the questions they asked, and the scenarios they put to me.

They think that Maddie went up to my room to find me missing, and that she saw something incriminating up there—perhaps she went to the window and saw me creeping back from Jack’s flat. Or perhaps they think she found something in my belongings, something to do with my real name, my true identity.

I don’t know. I had so much to hide, after all.

And they think that I came back to find her there, and realized what she had seen, and that I opened the window and that—

I can’t say it. It’s hard even to write it. But I have to.

They think that I threw her out. They think that I stood there, with the curtains blowing wide, and watched her bleed to death on the cobblestones, and then went back downstairs to drink tea, and wait calmly for Rhiannon to come home.

They think that I left the window open deliberately, to try to make it seem like she could have fallen. But they are sure that she didn’t. I am not certain why—I think it’s something to do with the position of where she landed—too far away from the building to be a slip, with an arc that could only have been caused by a push, or a jump.

Would Maddie have jumped? That’s a question I have asked myself a thousand, maybe a million times.

And the truth is, I just don’t know.

We may never know. Because the irony is, Mr. Wrexham, in a house filled with a dozen cameras, there are none that show what happened to Maddie that night. The camera in her room shows nothing but darkness. It points away from the door, at the girls’ beds, so there is not even a silhouette in the doorway to show what time Maddie left.