‘Bingo,’ I said. ‘Michael took out some of the money before he gave it to Alan. The reason he did this?’ If I’m honest, I really had nothing to back this up except gut feel, but I was pretty confident. And I was on a roll, so wasn’t keen to slow down. ‘Lucy was having trouble with her business. She was losing money and she was stuck with a car she couldn’t afford under the brutal lease conditions. When she told you it was paid off over breakfast, Marcelo, most of us thought it was her usual indignant defensiveness. But it turns out she wasn’t lying. Michael used the money to pay off her debts, including her car, before he went to meet Alan. He probably did this to make sure she’d be okay if something went wrong.’ And because he needed a clean break to leave her for Erin. I was glad Lucy wasn’t there to hear that part. ‘But he didn’t realise the effect that skimming off the top would have. Alan’s not stupid – he counts the money, finds it under, so he pulls a gun. They fight over it . . . and you know the rest.’

‘This is all very entertaining.’ Andy couldn’t contain himself. ‘But what about the Black Tongue?’

‘I haven’t got through everyone else yet. Erin, Sofia, Marcelo, you don’t know that Rebecca McAuley’s parents are here – they’re staying in the resort over the ridge. Seeing as Michael’s now got the microdot and knows where the body is buried, he writes to the McAuleys from prison, asking for them to double the payment.’ Siobhan McAuley had revealed this to me at SuperShred when she’d said, ‘He wants more money again.’ Michael had told me in the Drying Room that what he had was ‘worth a whole lot more’ than the three hundred grand Alan had originally priced it at. ‘Michael was planning to meet the McAuleys over the ridge to sell them both the photos and their daughter’s body – that’s why he brought it up here. He told you this was his plan, didn’t he, Audrey?’

‘I warned him against it,’ Audrey confirmed. ‘And when he insisted, I went up there to warn them myself.’

‘I’m sorry’—it was Andy again, showing no respect for the building of suspense—‘but Ernest, all this gangland kidnapping stuff is from thirty-five years ago. What does this have to do with the damn ash?’

‘All right.’ I put up a hand. ‘I get the message. Let’s go back to Green Boots. Our unidentified victim, or at least unidentified to most of us. Lucy actually solved it first.’