Beth flicked through the pages of the Courier before she spoke again. ‘We’ve been living together for five years. We’re not just flatmates like everyone keeps saying, but that’s all you’re getting from me. I’m not giving an interview for free,’ she said. Her brow creased with pain. ‘I can’t.’

‘A payment isn’t out of the question,’ Leanne replied, managing not to baulk.

The Courier wasn’t some national paper with wads of cash to persuade ‘a close family member’ to confess all, and there was no way Leanne was going to convince Mal it was worth their investment. It wasn’t as if she were speaking to Beth to add another voice to the anniversary piece, she had enough of those. Beth was a means to an end, and that end was the quest for justice that Mal had given Leanne clear instructions not to pursue.

‘I don’t mean to sound mercenary,’ Beth said, reading Leanne’s hesitancy as disapproval, ‘but we’re still paying the price of the fire. Karin has only just managed to get to a place where she can hold down a job, and the handouts we had at the beginning didn’t go far. We came out with our lives, and I know we should be grateful, but gratitude doesn’t pay the rent and it doesn’t put petrol in the tank or get me to work.’

‘I’m not judging you,’ Leanne said. She was rooting in her rucksack again and took out her purse. She had £60 in cash. ‘This isn’t a payment, it’s me doing my bit to help a fellow member of our town fill up her car – I know I don’t sound it, but I am a local.’

Leanne placed the cash on the car roof and used her phone to weigh it down. The voice recorder was running.

Beth scowled at the phone. ‘You want my story?’

‘Why don’t you start by telling me why you went to the theatre that night?’

Beth shrugged. ‘Karin was given tickets and we thought it would be a fun night.’

‘Is it right she got them off her brother for her birthday?’

Beth’s eyes narrowed. Leanne wasn’t supposed to mention Declan. ‘They weren’t a present as such. He wanted us to be his spies to make sure things were running smoothly.’

‘Such as?’

‘The sound quality, the lighting, that sort of thing, I suppose. He didn’t really say.’

‘Was he worried there was a problem with the electrics?’

‘So anyway,’ Beth said, deliberately ignoring her, ‘we went to a bar and had a couple of cocktails first to make more of a night of it. We weren’t that keen on seeing a ballet, but we fancied a nose inside the theatre after hearing so much about it.’