‘You’re Gavin’s new investor for buying this place. Of course you are – you’re the only one here with enough money, and how else could Katherine convince you to come and spend a weekend here? You hate the cold more than Sofia does; you’ve been grumbling about it the whole time. That’s part of the reason you were so annoyed at Katherine putting us all up in the chalets: you knew Gavin wanted to knock down the guesthouse, but you wanted to see what the rooms were like, to figure out if it was worth keeping.’

‘I am working on a business relationship while I’m here, sure. I noticed the place was for sale when Katherine booked it in. Does it matter?’ Marcelo barked his defence, so accustomed to doing the accusing instead of being the accused. He was staunch, chest puffed in outrage.

‘It doesn’t. But your first lie was that Audrey was ill for dinner two nights ago,’ I said. ‘Did it seem strange that she asked you to lie about it and then asked to come with you for your meeting with Gavin?’ I already knew it was because Audrey wanted an alibi to give to Michael, after she’d, hopefully, convinced the McAuleys to flee. Marcelo would back up her claims of being sick, and she would be able to skip away from dinner. I could see the doubt in Marcelo’s eyes as he looked at his wife.

Eventually he cleared his throat and said, ‘I haven’t killed anybody.’

‘Well, that’s another lie, isn’t it?’

‘I never touched Michael. Or Lucy. Or that bloke in the snow.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘Enlighten me then. Who am I supposed to have killed?’

‘Me.’

MY STEPFATHER
(again)

CHAPTER 38

The water had been heart-stoppingly cold when I went into the lake, remember? Juliette had to resuscitate me with CPR. It’s a technicality, sure, but an honest one.

‘Let’s think about what we know,’ I said. ‘We all know that Michael killed a man named Alan Holton. Some of us know that Alan Holton is the man who shot my father, Robert. Very few of us know that the reason my father was killed was because he was working undercover for the police. His last snitch, his final message to deliver to Detective Humphreys—’

‘Did you say Humph—’ Erin started, quick to assemble the pieces I was laying out, the name ringing a bell as one of the Black Tongue’s victims.

‘I did. Try not to get ahead of me.’ I smiled. ‘Robert’s last message was incriminating photographs of a murder, which we’ll get to. They were never found, despite both Alan and Audrey’s best efforts. And then three years ago Alan suddenly has them, and they’re for sale. Marcelo, you’re the one who tried to stop me finding out about it.’