72. Now

The voices are coming from Patrick's annexe. Georgia said he'd disappear in here for days when he was composing and often slept in there.

I had such a crush on him. Despite what Georgia said about how cruel he could be. Despite what my dad had said – I didn't believe him anyway.

On the landing I register the peeling wallpaper, the carpet stained dark under the radiator, the lamps hanging off the walls, and I rush on, following the voices and the dot-to-dot of blood.

At the annexe door, Lydia hesitates and I push past her. ‘What if…' she starts, and I pause to look back at her. ‘What if someone comes up behind us?' She means Georgia. What if Georgia comes up behind us and traps us in the annexe?

Glances pass between us but Tristan forges ahead.

‘I'll stay here,' Lydia says. ‘Keep watch.' Her forehead creases. ‘If Rose is there…'

I nod. I don't know how she can bear it – not coming with us to see for herself – but she's right, and I leave her standing there and hurry past the room where we used to have our music lessons. It stands empty except for a keyboard in front of an upturned crate. The little kitchenette is bursting with rubbish – wrappers, cartons, takeaway boxes. The shouting is louder and I'm sure it's just two voices – Ash and Ava – but I cling onto hope.

Tristan stumbles into what used to be Patrick's bedroom and we follow. There's a mattress without bedding and a TV and a camp chair and a pile of torches and bin bags taped across the curtainless windows. More rubbish: shiny crisp packets, opened blister packs, tissues.

The TV… I stop and stare. It's pink and?—

‘DAD?' It's Ash. The shouting is coming from the bathroom.

‘Stand back,' Tristan barks, and then he hurls himself at the door, which splinters away from the frame, and falls in. There stand the twins: pale, shiny-cheeked but unharmed.

Behind them the bath brims with red.

And then I see that it's everywhere: puddles on the floor, spatters on the sink and painted screaming in capital letters across the wall:

WHO KILLED JENNA BEAUFORT-brADLEY?