“She’s not even hurt,” I said. And it was true. Em had no injuries that I could see. Only when they moved her, there was a pink patch, not big, no pool of blood or anything, on one of the stone markers that bordered the drive.

“You need to all go inside now with my colleague.” It was one of the police, a female officer. Another car was arriving, unmarked, with two men inside. Soon, they’d be joined by a photographer and the forensics officers. She turned to me. “Listen, love, you’ve only got your socks on. You’ll catch your death.”

But it was Em who had caught her death, caught the death I had called up, the one I had summoned from beneath the ice, and there was no bringing her back from it.

We were interviewed. First at the house, again at the station. I told the police how I knew Em and for how long, how we’d come to be there, and what we had been doing and how I knew all the others. They wanted to know about the game and when I had last seen Em, and what time I’d gone to bed and where and with whom.

“You say it was about ten-thirty p.m.?”

“Maybe nearer eleven, but I was up in the night. I came downstairs.”

“Time?”

“About one.”

“And did you see Emma?”

“No.”

“Why did you come downstairs?”

“I wanted the diamonds, the one we used for the game.”

“The necklace David Graves had won.”

“He had left them on the mantelpiece, but I wanted them.”

“And did you see anyone?”

“I saw David.”

“And how long were you downstairs.”

“Perhaps an hour…”

I told them. It was all going to come out anyway.

“And you’re in a relationship with Marcus Fisher?”

“Yes.”

“And what about Emma?”

“What about her?”

“Was she in a relationship with anyone?”

“No.”

“She had not fought with anyone? She wasn’t angry with anyone as far as you knew? There wasn’t a lover’s quarrel?”

“No,” I said. “Em wasn’t in love with anyone.”

A week or so later, I was called back. It was the same two detectives. They were interested in the footprints. It was like a puzzle, I could see that. They had photographs of the drive, color shots and some black and whites.

“Bit arty,” I said. I felt ill, like a lifetime of eating rotten things had caught up with me. There was one of the house, a black and white. The door was open. It looked like a maw. Black door and windows and everything bleached and unutterably sinister, like a lunatic park and all the love I’d ever felt for it was a knife twisting in my heart.