Then she buried her glare into me instead. ‘And you.’ The word festered in her mouth. My heart hammered as, for a second, I thought she was about to reveal she knew about the money. That would give me serious motive. Lucy sneered instead. ‘Maybe you did it together. Why was Ernest so desperate to get downstairs and see Michael, as soon as he woke up, huh?’ she appealed to the room. ‘Because no one had discovered him yet, and he wanted to be first. That’s all I’m saying.’

People have a habit of saying ‘That’s all I’m saying’ when they’re saying an awful lot, I’ve noticed. I could hear Erin grinding her jaw beside me, her leg bouncing up and down underneath the table.

I decided to stick up for myself. ‘Why would I hurt Michael?’

‘He was fucking your wife, for one thing.’

‘Lucy!’ Audrey hissed, pulling away from her. I don’t know who was more shocked, Lucy or me, that my mother was sticking up for me. ‘You can blame who you want, but only one person here insisted that Michael be put in the only room with a lock on the outside.’

The room was silent. Audrey was right. And though she’d been quiet up until now, she was seething with rage. Just like everyone else, she’d found someone to blame. She hadn’t been defending me, she’d just wanted to drive the knife into Lucy. Lucy had been the one to suggest the Drying Room. The only room he couldn’t escape. I might have felt that he was in that room because of me, but Lucy had literally put him there. That was why she was slinging accusations around the room: she felt guilty too.

Sofia whispered something to Crawford, who unlocked and passed her his phone. She walked over and crouched in front of Lucy to show her the screen.

‘I don’t think you’ve seen this yet,’ Sofia said, her voice soft and calm. ‘I know what I’m saying sounds crazy. But if you’d seen . . .’ She let the image on the phone finish the explanation for her. ‘There is a killer here. This man did not die of exposure.’

The blood drained from Lucy’s face. The hatred had scuttled back to her edges, like a closet full of roaches exposed to the light. When she looked up from the screen, she seemed almost confused, like she didn’t remember she was in a room full of us in the first place. An anger hangover, Erin and I used to call them: when you argue over nothing and realise in the cold light of morning that you just look stupid. That’s how Lucy looked. Confused and humiliated.