"It is a fresh hurt for your friend. You have had time to come to terms with your mother's betrayal."

He pondered for a moment. "I was speaking with someone the other day, about a different issue. I told him, monsters are easy to dismiss; people are more complicated. It is possible that this woman failed to love her daughter as she should. It is also entirely possible that she loved her daughter very much, and yet still killed herself."

Hannibal leaned forward. "Unless this woman left a note, or we are - through the vagaries of this island - somehow able to ask her, we may never know her reasons. It was almost certainly not simply your friend - or any one thing - that was the cause of it."