‘If you’re suggesting she was killed because she figured it all out . . .’ Sofia used her palm to lift her head, gave a small shake. ‘We know she fell – there wasn’t any ash on her and she had several broken bones. There was no sign of a struggle.’

‘No. She did jump,’ I agreed, recalling Lucy’s finger gun when we were talking on the roof: I’d rather . . . ‘But she told me yesterday that she’d rather kill herself than choke to death under the Black Tongue’s torture. She threw herself off the roof, but only as an escape from what was about to happen. I think she went up to google something, to double-check her suspicions. Our killer got scared and confronted her up there, after we’d all left the bar. Remember the fear in her face when she looked at the photo of Green Boots? I thought she was just horrified at seeing what had really happened to Michael, especially since she thought it had been partly her fault. But I was wrong. She was scared because she recognised him.’

‘None of us have ever seen him before. How the hell does Lucy know the dead guy?’ That was Andy. He was still the most confused. Everyone else looked like they understood parts, but had brows furrowed, still working to understand the whole. Only one person had their jaw set, poker face on. With every statement, it was like I was cranking a winch, tightening the muscles in that person’s neck.

‘I didn’t say she knew him,’ I said. ‘I said she recognised him. She’d only met him once – he gave her a speeding ticket on the way up here.’

I let it sink in. People swivelled to look behind them, everyone’s gaze settling on someone standing at the back of the room.

‘Crawford, those stripes of blood on the inside of your uniform’s cuffs, they aren’t from carrying the body down the mountain. They’re on the inside of the wrists. Whoever made those stains got them from clutching at their own throat.’ I mimicked clawing at an imaginary zip-tie around my neck. ‘You’re wearing a dead man’s coat.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ Crawford asked.

I gave Juliette a knowing smile ahead of what I was about to say, which I’m proud I haven’t embellished in the slightest here, before turning my attention back to Crawford. ‘I’m saying that even Arthur Conan Doyle believed in ghosts. Isn’t that right, Jeremy?’

MY BROTHER

CHAPTER 39

Jeremy Cunningham, now looking very silly (costumed, even) in a policeman’s coat that was stained with someone else’s blood, gave a feeble smile and a weak shake of his head. He tried to say something – that’s ridiculous, perhaps – but it came out, well, choked.