Sophie crossed the room and joined her, but Lindsay shrugged out of her embrace. “Please, Sophie. Just leave me alone. I know it’s daft, but I really don’t want to be touched right now.”

Sophie let her go immediately, but stayed on the sofa next to her. “You couldn’t be expected to guess,” she tried. “There was no reason on earth why you should connect Cordelia to Alison’s murder.”

“No reason on earth except for her guilt, you mean?” Lindsay raged. “Jesus, doesn’t everything just fall into place when you get the key to it? The entry in Alison’s diary about the political hot potato, you remember? She was hoping for some originality between the sheets! No wonder Cordelia wanted to ‘help’ me investigate the murder! No wonder she wanted to get me into bed to distract me, then drag me back to London. And I stupidly thought she was doing it to protect Claire!”

“There was still no reason for you to suspect her,” Sophie argued, desperately wanting to help Lindsay but not being certain how to do it.

“Of course I should! I was the one person who knew damn well that she hadn’t written a word of that book when I left last May. The time scale was all wrong. I should have known there was something fishy going on. And if I hadn’t run off to Italy in the first place, none of this could ever have happened.” Lindsay’s face was like stone, her eyes cold and dead, her voice dull and flat.

“You really can’t take responsibility for everything,” Sophie protested, trying to control the anger she felt toward Cordelia. “Anyway, you didn’t give in to her attempts to distract you. You stuck with it.”

“I wish now I hadn’t,” Lindsay retorted. “How do you think it feels to know that the woman I loved and lived with for three years is a plagiarist and a killer? Jesus, where did she think it was going to end? Did she really think that killing Alison was any kind of answer?”

“Like you said, she probably panicked. She didn’t expect any doubts to surface about the book’s authenticity, she didn’t have her answers off pat. Besides, you’ve told me yourself how twisted and provocative Alison could be,” Sophie replied.

“Don’t make excuses for her, Sophie,” Lindsay said angrily. “She killed someone just to protect her reputation. Alison might have been a complete shit, but that’s no excuse for what Cordelia did.” She got up and restlessly paced the floor.

“What are you going to do about it?” Sophie asked.