‘When I let you go you’re going to leave the tent and you’re not going to make a fuss. You’re going to return to your room, pack a bag and ask the concierge to call you a taxi to the ferry. You’re going to go back to wherever it is you came from and you’re never going to contact my husband again.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘I’ll tell the press all about your dad, the highly decorated Colonel. Well, I say “dad”, but we both know that’s not true. They’d have a field day with a story like that. Swinging Soldiers Sex Scandal – I can see the headline now. Do your parents read the tabloids at all?’

Jenna lurches away from her, smacking into Phoenix’s legs, then she scrabbles to her feet, hitting out at Kate as she yanks her arm free. There are shouts of ‘Who is that?’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Who’s leaving?’ as Jenna scrabbles over and around hot, slippery bodies until, finally, she makes it across to the other side of the tent. As she claws at the tarpaulin, searching desperately for the loose flap of material, the drum starts up again. She can still hear it – boom, boom, boom – pounding in her ears as she drags herself out of the sweat lodge and onto the cold, hard ground outside.

Chapter 46

Now

FRAN

Fran drives in the dark, sitting low in her seat, headlights off as she follows Renata’s black Range Rover at a distance as it winds through the narrow country lanes. After her initial burst of excitement that her sister might still be alive and hiding out on the coast of Wales, doubt has set in and the adrenaline that coursed through her body as she ran up to the car park has worn off, leaving her exhausted and confused.

How could Jenna be alive when her blood was found on the cliff edge? Was she attacked and then she ran off? How could she have done that without her flip-flops? Anyone walking barefoot on those rocks would cut their feet to shreds. Is that why there was blood – because Jenna ran from someone? But Caroline hadn’t mentioned a trail of bloodied footprints, she’d specifically mentioned blood on the rocks where Jenna was last seen. Did Jenna have a spare set of shoes with her and she’d left the flip-flops and blood to make it look as though she’d been murdered? Did she murder someone else and stage her own death?

Fran shakes off the thought.