I dimly recalled thinking the jagged edge of the wind had sounded like a chainsaw as Sofia and I stumbled up to the maintenance shed. I say dimly because it was a faint memory, but also because I think myself rather stupid: I should have registered the sound as unnatural at the time. But wind in your ears sounds like all kinds of things – chainsaws, trains, screams – so I didn’t deliberately obfuscate the information, which would breach Rule 8. If the sound I heard was, in fact, the burr of a leaf-blower, that meant that Michael had been murdered while I was out playing detective. It also meant, if you’re keeping score, that Sofia, who was with me at the time, now had an alibi for both murders.

‘How do you know it was a leaf-blower?’ Lucy had found her objection. I thought it strange she was trying to poke holes in Michael’s death, but I supposed her adamant refusal of the facts was a sign that she was struggling to accept it on the whole.

‘Well,’ Sofia admitted, ‘that part I surmised from the news reports on the Black Tongue. Like I said though, there’s a cylindrical tunnel in the snow.’

‘No. I don’t believe you. That bloody fool got himself killed by the weather and then you’—Lucy pointed at Crawford—‘locked up my Michael and someone . . .’ Her voice started hitching, but she pushed it out. ‘Someone used all this panic that you’re making . . . thought it was an opportunity to . . .’ She gathered herself. ‘It wouldn’t be that hard to find these fire killings or whatever in the news – to, you know, copy them. I looked them up myself.’ She was oscillating between explanations. Her head swivelled around the room. It was obvious she was looking for someone else to blame. She proceeded to snipe at everyone individually, growing more angry and frantic with each accusation. Crawford: ‘You made him a sitting duck.’ Sofia: ‘You started all this panic.’ Katherine: ‘You brought us all here.’

Then she reached Erin. It would be hyperbolic to say a shadow crossed her face, but some kind of feral change settled in her eyes all the same. Something had dawned on her. Something else to cling to. ‘Like I said, someone with the right motive might have taken the opportunity given to them. He was just clinging to you while he was in prison. You were a pastime. A plaything. Because he knew that I’d be waiting for him on the outside. Once he was out, he didn’t need you anymore. I knew he’d snap out of it once he saw me. If he didn’t love me, then why did he fix . . .’ A cruel smile blossomed. ‘He probably told you that? Right? As soon as you got here – that he realised he’d made a mistake? I wonder how you took that?’