‘You take a lot of time off.’ The idea sounded fabulous, but she needed to work. She wanted to see where George had died, and where he’d been dumped, and she was with the right person to describe both scenes to her. But she couldn’t help thinking that she could be pursuing other angles, such as why the house hadn’t been burgled. She knew damn well why: because George’s death had been planned. He didn’t disturb a few burglars. Still, she figured Graeme could help her with those queries as well. She really had hit the jackpot. The missed calls on her phone bothered her only slightly. She never answered calls from unknown numbers, but there’d been five. There was also one from a foreign number.

Graeme had told her last night that the police had been pretty thorough in their search of Allerdale House, and she knew that meant they’d check the phone records. She’d flicked through her phone, and sure enough, George had called her from a landline with a Cumbria dialling code. She asked herself why he would be so stupid, but then she realised that he’d done it on purpose, because he knew he was being pursued.

She had decisions to make: act nonchalant and come up with a good excuse as to why he’d called her, or trust the police to take her theories on board. Fuck that, she thought. It was too risky. She had to find out exactly what George had been hiding, and prove it.

She was brought out of her thoughts by Graeme kissing her neck. He was almost fifty, but he didn’t seem to mind the age gap, though what man did if he was getting what he wanted? She knew she was a mature thirty, mainly due to the nature of her job. She didn’t go out clubbing and she didn’t have a gaggle of girls she swapped gossip with. She preferred the company of older people. Graeme was in extremely good shape. He was naked already and didn’t seem to mind the morning light illuminating the fact. Before she knew it, he was on top of her, moving up and down again. She certainly hadn’t factored this into her Lake District itinerary, but she wasn’t complaining.

She allowed herself to be carried away with it: his body, the moment, the delicious craziness of it. Her mind emptied and she clung onto him. They fell off the bed and he picked her up, wrapping her legs around him and pushing her up against the wall. She had no idea if these bedrooms were soundproof, but she couldn’t help herself, and her sighs mingled with his, accompanying the rhythmic thuds on the wall. He gasped and she felt his body go weak. He managed to take her back to the bed, where they fell beside one another, panting and sweaty.