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‘The most obvious suspect is Sophie Poor Sophie, as everyone calls her Always getting hurt, always getting sick Though things started to get better when Madeleine arrived’

Sophie stared at hi

‘The house that had been so full of things and yet so eine?’

Suddenly they were transported to a day in their iinations when the drab home of Hazel and Sophie was visited by sunshine When the curtains were thrown open When laughter stirred the decay in the rooht

‘But the price you paid was that your shadoere revealed You fell in love with Madeleine, didn’t you?’

‘Love isn’t a shadow,’ said Sophie defiantly

‘You’re quite right Love isn’t But attachment is Myrna, you talked about the near ene as love,’ nodded Myrna ‘But I wasn’t thinking of Sophie’

‘No, you were thinking of someone else But it applies here’ He turned back to Sophie ‘You wanted Madeleine for yourself You went to her university, Queens, to iet her to pay h to share Madeleine with your mother, but when you returned home recently and found Madeleine in a relationship with Monsieur Béliveau, that was too much’

‘How could she? I rocer for God’s sake How could she love hi Queens for her and when I come back she’s not even around She’s at a séance with him’

She jabbed her crutch at Béliveau, who seemed beyond the insults

‘When the next séance caht all your life, even taking ephedra a few years ago, until it was found and taken away But eventually the weight crept back and you ordered irl, just two years ago’ Gae Each person looked at it It seemed to have been taken on another planet One where people laughed, and loved, and celebrated One where Madeleine was still alive

‘You found the pill bottle You knew youraway Inspector Beauvoir described the cupboard filled with old pills,out of date We know from the lab that you didn’t use your current ephedra pills Instead, you found the old ones You knew Madeleine had a heart daed by her chemotherapy treatments –’