The tea tray rattles in my hands as I head out into the garden. It’s the first day of the Easter holidays and it’s also the first warm day of the year. I went back to work in February, so life has been a bit of a whirlwind these past few months. Mel stands up and takes the tray from me, setting it down on the wooden patio table. I sanded and painted the table and chairs last weekend and I can’t stop admiring my handiwork.

Mel and I smoothed over our differences months ago. I decided that life was too fragile to hold grudges. Yes, she’s a little flaky and doesn’t always think before she acts, but I’m sure there are hundred things that irritate her about me too. That’s the thing about Mel and me – since we were kids we were always falling out over something or other, but we always make it up in the end. And Mel hasn’t been as lucky. I have a family support network. She lost hers when she was still a child.

Mel cleared up the Tamsin situation for me. Turns out Tamsin lied when she said Dom invited her to the barbecue. Apparently, Tamsin was at Mel’s place when the Cliffords popped round to invite Mel to their party, so they ended up inviting Tamsin along, too. Tamsin was just stirring things when she told me it was Dom who had invited her, trying to upset me – it worked.

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t been able to resist a few peeks at Tamsin’s Facebook page over the past few months. I noticed that she’s training for a triathlon, and I wonder if she’s doing it to try to impress Dom. I know I shouldn’t even be looking at her page, but I can’t help myself. Her updated status says she’s “in a relationship”, but there are no photos or mentions of her new man.

‘That sun is just heaven,’ Mel says, smoothing her hair back, closing her eyes and turning her face skywards, looking for all the world like a 1950s movie star.

‘It’s about time the weather cheered up,’ Lorna adds, picking up the teapot. ‘It’s been a long old winter. Cal! Hannah! Are you having tea or a cold drink?’

‘Tea please!’ they call back. Callum and Hannah currently have their hands full. They’re on the lawn – not only are they keeping an eye on Leo, who is now at the crawling stage, they’re also running around after Daisy, who has just started toddling, as well as Mel’s two little ones. But there’s a lot of squealing and laughter, so I’m not too worried. Hannah doesn’t want anything more than friendship from Callum, but he is so besotted with her that he says he’ll be with her any way she wants. Lorna now thinks the world of the boy and has apologised many times for treating him so badly before the truth came out.

‘So,’ Lorna says, pouring the tea, ‘have you decided what you’re going to do about Dom yet?’

I screw up my nose and sit down, angling my chair so it faces the sun. ‘I don’t know. He’s fine at his mum and dad’s for now. I miss him, of course I do, but I can’t quite seem to forgive him for not believing me when it when it was all going wrong, you know?’

‘He misses you, Kirst,’ Mel says. ‘And he misses Daisy. He’s miserable without you and, you know, if you take him back you can hold this over his head for years. I mean, he owes you big time.’ She grins.

‘If I did take him back,’ I reply, ‘I’d want to put all this behind us. I wouldn’t use it against him, tempting as it sounds. Trouble is, I don’t know if I can put it behind us, which is why I can’t make up my mind what to do. And I don’t want to make the wrong decision because it would be a nightmare to take him back and then end up resenting him every day.’

Dom has tried his hardest to make it up to me – looking after Daisy whenever I ask (although I suspect it’s more his mum who’s doing the looking after) and ringing me every day to see how I am and checking whether I need anything. He also stopped taking the steroids and pulled out of his triathlon. He said it didn’t feel right to compete after everything that had happened. Said his heart wasn’t in it any more.

Something else occurs to me. ‘So, you’re in touch with Dom, then?’ I ask Mel.

‘Oh, yeah. It’s just, you know, he sometimes needs someone to talk to. That’s okay, isn’t it?’ She blows her fringe out of her eyes.

‘Of course,’ I reply. But actually, I’m not sure that it is okay. I’m not sure why. Is it that I don’t trust Dom, or that I don’t trust Mel?

‘You’ve got to do what’s best for you and Daisy,’ Lorna says. ‘No offence, Mel, but if Dom’s miserable without her, that’s not Kirstie’s problem. He needs to realise that he wasn’t there for his wife when she needed him most.’ She doles out our mugs of tea.

Some days I feel like it would be easy to forgive Dom, other days, not so much. But the main thing I’ve realised is that whatever I decide, it will be fine. I will be fine.

Mel and I have become close with Lorna these past few months. We both feel terrible about our earlier judgement of her. We never realised that the reason for Lorna’s stand-offishness was firstly because she’s always been incredibly shy, and secondly because she was being abused by her husband. It just goes to show how wrong we were to have judged her. She was going through a horrific time and needed our support, not our judgement. I just hope we’ve gone some way to making things right by being here for her now.

I still can’t believe I didn’t see what was going on next door – Hannah was my pupil and my neighbour, and I wish I could have put a stop to Parkfield’s abuse earlier. But if I feel guilty, Lorna feels utterly wretched. We’ve told her it’s not her fault. He never bullied any of the girls in front of her, so she never suspected a thing. And how could you even begin to accept that the man you once loved was capable of such evil?

Both she and Hannah are getting regular counselling, but I don’t think what they’ve been through is something you can ever get over. Perhaps, one day, you reach a stage where you can learn to live with it, to enjoy those rare moments where you forget it ever happened. Perhaps.

Stephen Parkfield is serving nine years in prison. He will also get life on the sex offender’s register and an indefinite restraining order after he gets out. And of course, he can kiss goodbye to his precious career. Parkfield denied the allegations right up to the point where he was presented with the results of the paternity test for Leo. Then he had no choice but to admit his vile behaviour. Personally, I feel that ninety years would have been too short a sentence.

‘Hey, Lorna, what’s the new family next door like?’ Mel asks, sipping her tea.

‘I haven’t met them yet either,’ I add, also curious about the family who’ve moved into number two. ‘They’ve got a baby, haven’t they?’

‘They seem nice,’ Lorna replies, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Younger than us. Their little boy is a similar age to Leo. Haven’t really spoken to them much. Then again, we never really spoke to the Cliffords either.’

‘I wonder what happened to Jimmy and Rosa,’ Mel muses. The Cliffords moved out of their house the week Parkfield was arrested, and left no forwarding address. None of us has seen or heard from them since. ‘I still can’t believe they were selling drugs in our road,’ Mel adds, dunking a chocolate-chip cookie into her tea.

I give a vague murmur in response, not mentioning the fact that Dom was getting steroids from them. Although Dom has pissed me off, he’s still my husband, still Daisy’s father. I don’t want people gossiping about him. I discovered that Jimmy also supplied the drug used to spike my drink. I’m glad they’ve gone.

‘I doubt we’ll see the Cliffords again,’ Lorna says. ‘I mean, one day they were there, the next they weren’t. I wonder if the police will ever track them down.’

‘I always assumed they owned number two.’ I run a finger around the rim of my mug. ‘Never realised they were renting it. I thought they were loaded.’

‘It’s funny, isn’t it,’ Mel says. ‘You live next door to these people but you never know what’s really going on behind closed doors…’ Her voice trails off as she realises the same could be said for the Parkfields. ‘Sorry, Lorna. Didn’t mean to—’

‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it.’ Lorna waves away Mel’s apology, but her face tightens, closing down.

‘Do we really have to go to this thing this afternoon?’ Mel asks, changing the subject quickly.

‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘We really do. Anyway, play your cards right and you might end up in the paper.’

‘What?’ Lorna and Mel cry in unison.

‘Didn’t you know?’ I say with a smirk. ‘Apparently, the local paper is coming to cover the story.’

True to his word, Martin has invited the neighbours to the great unveiling ceremony of his Lego model of Magnolia Close. We’ve all been issued with strict instructions not to touch anything. Which seems a shame, as Lego is such a lovely tactile toy. But I didn’t really expect anything less.

‘How did Martin manage to get the paper to cover it?’ Mel asks.

‘I have no idea,’ I reply. ‘The ways of Martin Lynham are mysterious and strange.’

‘Well I won’t be going,’ Lorna says. ‘Not if the media are there. I’ve had quite enough of that lot over the past few months.’ As Parkfield was a prominent figure in the local area, there was a fair amount of media attention over his arrest and conviction. Luckily, Lorna was able to keep Hannah’s and Leo’s names out of the papers, thanks to a court order. But it didn’t stop people speculating.

‘You’re not getting out of it, Lorna,’ Mel says. ‘I’ll text you once the journos have gone. If I have to go to the Lego model of joy, you have to go.’

‘Fine,’ Lorna says, rolling her eyes. But I don’t imagine she’ll be there.

‘He still gives me the creeps,’ Mel says.

‘He’s all right,’ I reply. ‘Just a bit lonely. He’s trying to get the new couple at number six to join the Neighbourhood Watch, but they’re not having any of it.’

‘Their place is incredible.’ Mel’s eyes take on a faraway dreamy expression. ‘I wonder if I could get the builders to do that to my house.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I say. ‘One year of building mayhem is quite enough, thank you.’

The work at number six was finally finished the week before Christmas. The new owners are an older couple and they invited all the neighbours over for drinks, so we were able to have a good old nosy around their house which, like Mel just said, is incredible. They’ve transformed their fifties family home into a contemporary glass and cedar-clad box filled with light.

Martin gave the couple an ear-bashing about the disruption they caused while the builders were there, and they were completely apologetic and lovely, which eventually seemed to mollify him. But, apart from their moving-in party, they keep pretty much to themselves.

And me? What about me? I guess I’m happier now, in my own way. I sleep more soundly and I don’t have to check the locks more than a couple of times each night. My emotions were all over the place after everything that happened. Grief and shock at what Hannah went through. Fury at Parkfield. Frustration and anger at my husband.

All those weeks spent worrying for my baby, fearing there were monsters out to get her. But it was never my own child in danger; it was Hannah. She was the one who needed saving, protecting. I may have got it wrong to begin with, but at least I followed my instincts. I knew something wasn’t right, and so I hunted down the monster until he finally showed himself.

And right now, I’m doing okay. I have my child, my work, my friends. That’s got be worth celebrating, hasn’t it?

My mobile phone buzzes on the table. I pick it up. Dom’s face shows on the screen. A photo of him holding Daisy just after she was born. Mel’s eyes flick from my phone screen to my face. I can’t quite discern her expression. My belly flutters. I think about rejecting the call, but then I change my mind at the last minute, sliding my finger across the screen and bringing the phone to my ear. I walk back into the kitchen where it’s quieter.

‘Dom. How’s it going?’

‘Yeah, you know. Still missing you.’

I don’t reply.

He clears his throat. ‘I was just wondering if you and Daisy wanted to come to the beach for a picnic next week.’

I sigh. There was a time when I’d have been thrilled that he wanted to spend quality time with me and Daisy.

‘I love you, Kirst,’ he says. ‘I want us to be a family again. Come to the beach.’

‘Let me think about it,’ I reply.

But as I end the call, I realise I already know what my answer will be.