The only article Leanne wanted to publish had been written months ago. It hadn’t been what Mal had wanted then, and he certainly wouldn’t accept it now, but that didn’t matter to Leanne. Despite the new narrative, Phillipa Montgomery was culpable of something, even if it was only conceit and snobbery. She had run away to her little chateau in the Dordogne or wherever it was, and her behaviour reeked of guilt. Leanne had seen it in her eyes on the night of the anniversary. It was like looking in a mirror.

‘I’ve asked Frankie to put something together,’ Mal said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I know you’re still on leave, but this might be the time to write that final article on the Empress fire. You can connect with our readers in a way that no one else at the Courier can. This is your town, Leanne. Lois was your friend. You’re looking for resolution just like everyone else in Sedgefield.’

‘I won’t do it. No, definitely not.’

‘Grief has a way of eating you from the inside if you let it,’ Mal warned. ‘One day, you wake up and you see someone you don’t recognise.’ His gaze had a glassy quality as if he were looking directly into the past. ‘I don’t want that to happen to you.’

Leanne hadn’t known Mal when he lost his wife, Jill, six years ago, but she had seen photos of him before his beer gut and frayed edges. According to Frankie, the couple had been saving up for a retirement cottage in the Lake District. He had never talked about retirement in all the time that Leanne had been at the Courier.

‘I accept what you’re saying,’ she replied, ‘but I’m not there yet, and I won’t be the only one in Sedgefield who feels like that. Some wounds won’t heal while there are questions to be answered.’

‘It could be years before families get their day in court, and the defendants aren’t going to be the ones you’d imagined taking the stand. It’s time to stop this witch-hunt.’

Shuffling back against the futon to create distance from the advice her editor was giving, Leanne’s hand touched the file she had been working on earlier. She explored it with her fingers as if feeling for the pulse of a dead animal. What would Claudia make of the findings? Would she act as the town’s spokesperson, while Leanne was left choking on her words?

‘Even if I could accept the findings, I can’t close my eyes to every injustice. If anything, it makes me more determined to seek them out,’ she said, searching for a new course for her anger to surge towards. ‘You said the other week that you didn’t care if Claudia had saved Amelia or not, but are you sure you can live with that? Because I can’t.’