Picture of Innocence. TJ Stimson

is,’ Candace shuddered. ‘I was only five when I had it, and I was hardly ill at all, but Lucas was fourteen and he had an awful time. I remember Aunt Dot had to tie mittens on him in the end to stop him scratching himself to pieces.’ She lowered her voice and grinned conspiratorially. ‘Apparently he even had spots on his willy.’

      Maddie laughed. She loved Candace; she might be a little tactless at times, but she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. At thirty-one, she was only a year younger than Maddie, but she seemed to have settled into a happy spinster groove, content to play the eccentric maiden aunt to her niece and nephews. It was unfortunate: the same strong, masculine features that made Lucas so ruggedly handsome were significantly less flattering on his sister. She must have been six feet and was built like a rugby prop forward. But beneath it all, she was emotionally fragile. She’d never managed to maintain a serious relationship and Maddie wondered if it was another legacy from the terrible tragedy that had shaped Candace’s childhood: the fear of letting anyone get too close.

      Lucas had introduced her to his sister just a couple of weeks after they’d started dating. The three of them had met at a rooftop bar in London overlooking St Paul’s, near where Candace worked as an IT consultant, and Maddie remembered feeling sick with nerves as she’d got into the lift with him, terrified that if Candace didn’t like her, it would be the end of everything. Lucas himself had been uncharacteristically subdued and Maddie had assumed it was because he, too, was anxious she met with his sister’s approval. It was only later she’d found out he’d been far more worried what she’d think of Candace.

      The evening had gone well, although she’d been a little taken aback by quite how much vodka Candace had managed to put away. But it’d been a Friday night and Candace had been celebrating landing an important new client. They’d left her at the bar around ten, waiting for some friends, and Maddie had fallen happily asleep in Lucas’s arms, thankful she’d passed the biggest test of their relationship so far.

      At 3 a.m. the next morning, Lucas had been awakened by a phone call from the police. Candace had been arrested after drunkenly crashing her Mini Cooper through the plate glass window of a car showroom in Berkeley Square. She’d been more than three and a half times over the legal limit.

      She’d lost her licence and her job. It was the start of what was to become an all-too-familiar pattern. Candace would promise the moon and stars, swearing to cut back on her drinking, and for a while she’d succeed, before falling off the wagon in spectacular fashion. Lucas had paid for her to go to rehab several times, until finally, four years ago, Candace had got her life back on track and moved down to Sussex to be near them. Maddie didn’t hold her problems against her. She knew better than anyone the demons that were fought in private.

      There was a loud wail from upstairs, and Maddie wearily shoved back her chair. ‘Sorry, that’s Jacob. I’d better go to him before he upsets Emily. She’s hypersensitive to noise at the moment. She hasn’t even wanted to watch any television, because she says it’s all too loud.’

      ‘She must be ill. Well, I won’t keep you, darling.’ Candace stood and enveloped Maddie in one of her brother’s bearlike hugs. ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Happy to mind the little buggers if you need a break.’

      Noah suddenly started crying too, woken by his brother’s yells. Maddie almost burst into tears herself.

      ‘Let me see to Noah,’ Candace offered. ‘Probably just lost his dummy. You go and sort out Jacob.’

      Maddie hesitated.

      ‘Go on,’ Candace said. ‘I’m not going to drop him or feed him gin.’

      Instantly, she felt guilty. Candace had never given her any reason to worry when it came to the children. She might not let her get behind the wheel with them in the car, but Candace had babysat for them numerous times.

      ‘There’s a clean dummy on the bookcase by the window,’ she said, shrugging off her misgivings. ‘Let me know if he needs changing.’

      She followed Candace upstairs and went into Jacob’s room. The little boy was standing up in his cot, arms outstretched to the stuffed dolphin that had fallen on the floor. Maddie gave it back to him and settled him down, stroking his back until he fell asleep again. She could hear Candace singing to Noah through the thin walls. Led Zeppelin, if she wasn’t mistaken.

      Her mobile phone suddenly buzzed in her jeans pocket. Quickly, she tiptoed out of the room to take it.

      ‘I got your email,’ her accountant, Bill O’Connor, said, without preamble. ‘Is now a good time?’

      There was no such thing as a good time today, but Maddie headed downstairs to the tiny study she and Lucas shared. ‘What are your thoughts, Bill? I know the figures aren’t great, but we’re behind on the Gift Aid paperwork, so if you take that into account—’

      ‘This isn’t about that,’ Bill interrupted. ‘You asked me to look at a second mortgage on your house.’

      ‘It’d just be for a couple of years,’ Maddie said quickly. ‘I’m sure we can get back in the black soon. Izzy’s got some wonderful fundraisers planned, and she’s talking to a couple of big donors, so it’s not like I’m pouring good money after bad, I do have a plan, if we can just get enough to tide us over—’

      Her accountant cut across her babble. ‘Putting aside the wisdom of using your personal funds to prop up the business, I have another concern. Whose name is the house in?’

      Maddie was taken aback by the question. ‘Lucas and I bought it together. It’s in both our names. Why?’

      ‘So, both your signatures would be required to take out a second mortgage?’

      ‘I suppose so, but I’m sure Lucas would agree—’

      ‘I’m not worried about Lucas agreeing, but you already have a second mortgage, Maddie.’

      The front door banged suddenly. Through the window, she watched Candace lever herself into the tiny front seat of her sports car and shoot out of the drive with a spurt of gravel. She was a little surprised her sister-in-law hadn’t bothered to say goodbye, but Candace was always a bit unpredictable.

      She switched her phone to the other ear. ‘Sorry, Bill. What did you just say?’

      ‘A second mortgage was leveraged against your house just over six months ago.’

      ‘That can’t be right. You must be confusing it with—’

      ‘I’m not confusing it with anything. I’m looking at the paperwork right now. Eighty thousand pounds, using the house as collateral. I have your signature right here. At least,’ he added ominously, ‘I assume it’s your signature.’

      Maddie sat down abruptly. For once, she was speechless.

      ‘Maddie,’ Bill said heavily. ‘You’re my client. I have to consider your interests first. I hate to ask you this, but did Lucas take this loan out without your knowledge?’

      ‘Of course not!’

      ‘So you did know?’

      She hesitated. Did she? Her memory hadn’t been exactly reliable recently. But she found it hard to believe she could have forgotten something this big. Eighty thousand pounds! A loan like that didn’t happen overnight. They’d have discussed it, and signed paperwork. Her memory was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. She couldn’t possibly have forgotten everything.

      But Lucas would never have taken it without telling her, she was equally certain about that. Five thousand, perhaps; he’d lent Candace quite a bit of money to help get her new IT consultancy off the ground last year and it was possible he might have borrowed a bit more without running it past Maddie first. But eighty thousand pounds? It simply wasn’t possible.

      Why would he even need that kind of money in the first place?