The McAuleys had been unwilling to pay half as much for their daughter’s safe return as they were for her dead body and the photographs of her killer. Alan wasn’t selling them closure, it was just good old-fashioned blackmail. He’d gone to Jeremy first, in the hope he’d be able to swindle money from the Williamses without having to put himself at as much risk as selling to the McAuleys. When he’d struck out there, he’d had to take the more dangerous path. He’d needed someone as a shield to go in between him and Edgar, but a Cunningham also gave his threat legitimacy, which was why he’d then approached Michael. And then Michael, when he’d been released from prison and had seen who was in the photos, had decided that the McAuleys owed him as well. What had he told me in the Drying Room? It’s right for them to pay. Them.

A false kidnapping to cover up a murder. It was clever. Hire a well-known gang to put on the front, create motive in the fluffed ransom, and come out the other end a victim rather than a suspect. Just like Marcelo had told me, it was an old story in which I’d know all the beats: easy to understand and easier to accept. As everyone had at the time. Rebecca was already dead before the first demand was ever made.

I called the police. A detective said they’d come past that afternoon to pick up the evidence, and then my phone ran out of battery.

‘Hey, Ern.’ Juliette’s face appeared again. She held up a dusty bottle of wine. ‘This has either aged well or terribly. Wanna come up?’

I promised certain things wouldn’t happen in this book, so I’d best end it here lest this chapter make me a liar.

I followed her up the ladder.

Ernest Cunningham’s 10 Easy Steps to Write Crime Like You Lived in the 1930s and Golden Age to Your Golden Page: How to Write a Mystery are available for $1.99 on Amazon.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The tone of every good acknowledgements section should be: thanks for putting up with me. A lot of people have put up with me during the writing of this novel, and I am grateful for their passion, patience and help at every stage.

Beverley Cousins, my publisher. Thank you for simultaneously letting me swing for the fences and patiently reeling me back in when my ambition outweighed my sensibility. Thank you for never being scared of an idea, for reading countless drafts that just weren’t quite working, and for having faith in me to find my voice and the story I wanted to tell. I feel both proud and fortunate to be one of your authors – thank you.