Sarah says nothing in the car on the way home while her mother chatters and chatters. She is to stay off school. Take as long as she needs. Build up her strength.

Her mother says she is glad Sarah has made up with her gang of friends, and that she must look to them for support now. No one is blaming anyone. There is to be no more nonsense. Why don’t they have a pizza night soon? Watch a film?

Sarah is surprised to feel unsteady on her feet as they walk through the front garden. Probably all that time in bed. She looks at the three rose bushes below the sitting room window and notices the large number of blooms. When she was taken from the house in the ambulance she remembers lying on the stretcher and passing the flower bed by the front door. There were no blooms then. Now there are five. No. Six. It feels odd somehow, for this to have changed so quickly.

‘Come on then, love. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’ She doesn’t want tea but says nothing.

Inside, she just stands in the sitting room in a kind of daze as her mother puts her small bag on the settee. Sarah looks at it. The tartan holdall. Inside is her make-up pouch, which she used so carefully in London. Eyeliner, mascara and her favourite lip gloss. She looks at herself in the mirror over the settee. No make-up today. Her eyes look small. Her lips dry.

In the reflection she can see photos in a variety of frames on the pine shelving on the opposite wall. There is a shot of her sitting in a paddling pool and blowing bubbles. Both of her parents are sitting alongside, smiling.

In another picture she is doing a handstand, her skirt flailing to show her white-and-pink spotted pants. She is frowning now, trying to remember who took the picture.

And then she scans along the shelf to see the picture of her sister Lily sitting on a bench on a holiday in France. She looks sad. No – not sad, that’s not the right word. She looks sort of distant and disconnected.

Sarah can hear the noise of the kettle through the archway that leads into the kitchen.

‘Why did Lily really leave?’

‘Sorry. Can’t hear you over the kettle.’ Her mother moves back into the sitting room, standing and staring at her.

Sarah keeps her eyes on the photograph of her sister. ‘Why did Lily really leave us?’

‘I don’t think this is the time to be talking about all of that. You need to rest, love.’

Sarah tilts her head to the side and then turns to look her mother in the face. She can feel a prickle of tears coming and her bottom lip trembling. She knows how easy it will be for her mother to put the pin back in the grenade as she always does. As Sarah always lets her.

‘It was over Dad, wasn’t it? It’s why he left.’ The blood leaves her mother’s face.

‘Why do you say that? You know why your father left. We weren’t getting along . . . and when things blew up with Lily, it all got a bit—’

‘What things blew up?’

Sarah hasn’t seen her sister in three years. Sometimes Lily phones to check that Sarah is OK, but she hasn’t in a while. They are friends on Facebook, but when Sarah checks Lily’s page, she hardly recognises her. She is in some kind of hippy phase. Her hair dyed strange colours. Odd clothes. Living in Devon in some strange group set-up. Always posting stuff about crystals and healing. All yoga and candles. Reiki and spelt flour. Sarah still misses her; she cannot believe Lily has not been in touch lately with all this going on. Everything all over the news again.

‘I want to know the truth, Mum.’

‘Truth? You’re making it all sound a bit melodramatic, love. You’ve been through a lot. You’re upset. Your father and me, we just stopped working. That’s all. You know that we both still love you.’

Sarah holds her mother’s stare and tries very hard to read it, to burn her own gaze deep into her mother’s, to trigger the reaction she needs. But the kettle announces it’s boiling and her mother looks away.

‘I don’t want a drink, thank you. I’m going to lie down.’ ‘How about a sandwich?’

‘I said I’m fine.’ Sarah grabs the overnight bag from the sofa and marches upstairs, where she closes the bedroom door, leaning her back against it with her hand still on the cold ceramic doorknob. She remembers that Lily picked them out – new doorknobs for the whole house. It’s amazing how much difference small details can make. It was in the phase when Lily was still talking about going to art college and was forever fired up about some project or another. Their tiny utility room was turned over to all manner of schemes. Felt-making or silk-printing one week; hand-dying of cotton sheets for rag rugs the next.

And then suddenly it all stopped. It was replaced by rows. Shouting and slamming of doors upstairs. Lily playing truant from school. Staying in bed all day. That sad look on her face from the photograph in France.

Sarah checks her watch and moves over to her desk to switch on the lamp, adjusting its arm so that it lights her work area perfectly. She fires up her laptop, impatient as it takes time to load and settle.

Her Facebook page is busy with new messages of support, wishing her well. Most of her friends seem to know she is home from hospital today. Word travels fast. She had to unfriend a lot of people who made unpleasant remarks when Anna first went missing. For a while she considered taking down her profile completely. She still gets the occasional nasty comment linked to a news report, but Sarah tries very hard to ignore them, banning anyone who oversteps the line. The truth is she can’t bear what some people say, but worries even more about what might be said behind her back. So she keeps the profile going.

Sarah clicks through to her sister’s page, where there is an updated profile pic – the ends of Lily’s hair dip-dyed pink now. There’s also a new batch of photos of some place she does not recognise: orchards and fields and soft-focus shots of yoga outside at dawn. A large group of people, arms linked, their faces turned away from the camera.

Sarah opens up a message to her sister and feels a lurch of sadness. The last time they chatted was not long after it all happened. She rereads all their messages. Lily had called a few times but Sarah was still in shock back then and had clammed up.

Now she feels very differently. She twists her mouth to one side and types. I need to speak to you, Lily . . . She is about to press send when she scans the message again, frowning and realising it is too vague; it’s not enough to provoke a response. She adds her new mobile number and then types some more . . . It’s about Dad. I’m worried he had something to do with Anna . . .

She leaves her finger poised over the send button, her heart pounding. For a moment she is not sure that she can do it. She doesn’t know whether she has the courage to finally pull the pin from the grenade. She puts both hands up to her mouth momentarily.

And then she lets out a huff of breath and presses send.