Something Michael had said that night returned, though. Lucy will know. Because a trial for murder, in which every movement is picked over, would almost certainly uncover his affair. Lucy couldn’t have known, or she wouldn’t have reacted the way she had to the news of them spending one night together. Imagine if she did know the whole story? Lucy will know. Michael had said it even though he and Erin were already seeing each other. I wonder if Erin knew he was still clinging to his marriage at that point, that he’d only made up his mind much later. It was telling that Lucy was much more devastated over Michael’s death than Erin was. I wondered if she knew more about it than I thought.

I put a pin in it. ‘I meant involved with this.’

‘Michael and I, not that it matters, but we never meant to—’

‘I don’t need to hear that bit. Tell me what Michael told you. And, more importantly, why you believed him.’

‘I didn’t the first time. I took some convincing. But, well, then I found the bag of money that you were hiding. Michael told me to look for it. I didn’t expect there to be anything, but I just couldn’t figure out what he had to gain by lying, so I had a poke around. You didn’t hide it very well, Ern.’ She said it like it was my fault. Like she’d tell me, back when we were happy, that she’d eaten chocolate she didn’t want purely because I’d left it within her eyeline. ‘And then I started to think about which other parts of his story made sense. And maybe I wanted it to be true. I was reeling from how we ended, and this was – well, it was insane, but it was redemptive. I bought into it because I thought we could make it up to you. I made Michael promise you’d be in. It was supposed to be our money, Ern – the three of us.’

It’s family money.

There it was again. Except this time, I finally understood it.

‘You’re not talking about the bag. You thought you were digging up . . .’ All this for a treasure map? ‘Wait, what exactly did you think you were digging up?’