While everyone else on the quad was likely speculating as to who’d started the fire, Susan, Daisy, and Esther were more concerned with working out which of their neighbors had vomited in the sink of the fourth-floor bathroom, thereby blocking it. A crime far greater than accidentally setting fire to the kitchen, which could totally happen to anyone.

“That one,” Susan said, pointing across the grass. A girl with a neat blond ponytail was standing with a duvet over her shoulders, asking no one in particular if the university would compensate her for smoke damage to her signed Ed Sheeran poster.

“How do we know it’s her?” Daisy’s glare wavered. Accusations weren’t to be thrown around lightly.

“Show your workings,” Esther said.

Susan narrowed her eyes further. Her investigative instincts remained razor sharp after a summer spent honing them the hard way on the cruel cul-de-sacs and low-key criminal underworld of Northampton, her hometown. “Look at her duvet, that hideous floral pattern . . .”

“Flowers. The hallmark of a reprobate,” Esther hissed.

“I like flowers,” said Daisy, her voice getting smaller. “Nature’s pretty.”

“. . . look closer, and you’ll find those aren’t petals but vomit splotches,” Susan finished with relish as her friends recoiled.

“No!”

“She needs to wash that duvet.”

Susan took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her checked shirt and lit one, an all-knowing smile emerging as she blew a thin stream of smoke between her lips.

There were some skills Esther’s privileged upbringing couldn’t pay for and Daisy’s homeschooling couldn’t teach. An education Susan was only too happy to provide.

She might want to be a doctor in later life, but Susan’s employment history until now had been erratic. Like most people, she’d started with whatever job she could find, working in one of her hometown’s many warehouses—until she turned whistleblower on their substandard (and illegal) business practices. Blacklisted by respectable businesses and criminals alike, Susan applied her unique skill set and keen sense of social justice as a freelance investigator. Provided she turned over the criminals, the police turned a blind eye to her lack of license.

Some people had skeletons in their metaphorical closets; Susan had accrued a plague pit of human remains.

Not that Esther and Daisy needed to know. That was the joy of university: a fresh start for everyone. Even someone as jaded as Susan. The only things her new friends knew about her were the things she’d chosen to reveal.

An awkwardly cleared throat and some shuffling alerted the trio to the presence of a new arrival: Ed Gemmell.

“Isn’t that your kitchen that’s on fire?” he said, frowning up at the fourth-floor window.