“Then last year, I was very low. I tried antidepressants but they didn’t work. It was like being very far away, in a boat at sea, alone. And I had rowed to exhaustion. I had nothing left. I couldn’t sleep half the time. In the evenings I would sit there, looking out, and sometimes I would talk to myself. Then I tossed the pills. You’re supposed to taper off, but I just stopped. And I started talking to the angel and the angel started talking back, Andy. But not like I was imagining it, not making up his side of the conversation. I could hear his voice, as clearly as I can hear yours.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“No, no. It was wonderful. He was so angry, and the anger was like this cold, beautiful fire.”

“Angry with you?”

“No. Angry with God funnily enough. Angry with people, with the world. And I wasn’t alone, and it was the best feeling. I didn’t go to work. I cannot remember being so happy. Making plans with the angel about what I was going to do.

“It stopped after a few days. I stopped hearing him. I went back to work and started downloading and making copies of everything. I thought it might come back. I miss it. I miss the clarity. I still talk but there’s no reply. I thought if I did it, if I exposed what I knew, whatever happened, it would be something. I’ve got more now, more files, more documents. They’re going to lose millions. It could bring down banks. It can’t be stopped now, whether they catch me or not. I’ve made sure of it. I’m tired, Andy. I want it to be over. All of it. I’m glad you came. I knew you would, as soon as the bells started ringing.”

There was nothing between us now, and despite all the trouble he was in, my heart was light. We would escape to France on a fishing trawler. Raise highland cattle in the Hebrides. I would never go back to my job. When I said these things, Peter smiled and squeezed my hand.

We fell to talking about the game, about Alice’s insistence that Em had hidden the diamonds somewhere near the front of the manor that morning, nowhere near the temple. But if that was the case, then what had we found? Peter couldn’t add much to what I’d learned about the night Em died.

“I sat in the boot room with a bottle of whiskey petting the dogs. I pissed in Rob’s shoes at one point. Then I went to bed. The room cold and spinning like a merry-go-round.”

“Shall we go see her? Perhaps she’ll tell us what happened.”