Olivia was usually excluded from this weary litany Rosemary never seemed to get her mixed up with the rest of them. The eldest three were (everyone agreed) ‘a handful’, too close together in age to be distinguishable to their mother so that they had evolved into a collective child to which she found it hard to attribute individual details and which she addressed at random – Julia-Sylvia-Amelia-whoever you are – said in an exasperated tone as if it was their fault there were so many of them. Their capacity for wrongdoing, especially under Sylvia’s reckless leader ship, was apparently limitless. Sometimes she would walk into a room or appear in the garden, glare at them and say, whatever it is you’re doing, don’t, and then simply walk away again, leaving them feeling aggrieved and badly done by, even when caught red-handed in the middle of some piece of mischief – devised by Sylvia usually.

They had not even realized that such a word existed in her vocabulary, which was usually restricted to tedious commands – come here, go away, be quiet, and – most frequent of all – stop that. They had never heard her use that word to describe any of them. Rosemary, their mother, said that she wished Olivia could stay at this age for ever because she was so lovable. Olivia, as cute as a button, they were all agreed, even Julia who had taken a long time to get over being displaced as the baby of the family, a position she had occupied for five satisfying years before Olivia came along.

Olivia, the youngest and therefore the one currently sleeping in the small back bedroom with the nursery-rhyme wallpaper, a room that all of them had occupied and been ousted from in turn. Olivia, as reliable as a rooster, always the first to wake, so that no one in the house had bothered with an alarm clock since she was born three years ago. Every morning the sun was up long before they were, making a mockery of the flimsy summer curtains that hung limply at their bedroom windows, a sun already hot and sticky with promise before Olivia even opened her eyes. HOW LUCKY WERE THEY? A HEAT WAVE IN THE MIDDLE of the school holidays, exactly where it belonged.

Case histories jackson brodie