I have tried to help Yasmin, bringing her groceries, and making sure there are some treats to help her through. A bottle of Koskenkorva, some nice chocolates, bubble bath. Last time I was there I grabbed the spare set of keys to their car while she was cooing over the goodies.

The garage they keep it in is down a side street, not visible from their house. It takes me just under three hours to drive to my destination and back. I pull over half a mile from the garage to inspect the car, wiping down the sides where small specks of mud from the dirty lane have marked the paintwork.

A man out walking an aged spaniel finds a phone under a tree. There is a smudge of blood on the screen. No fingerprints though, as the police discover to their disappointment an hour after it is brought in. They plug it into a computer and hack into it using some specialized software that the public is very wary about, accusations of spying flying around.

But still. The phone belongs to Leah Patterson. The picture on her cover screen is her and a man who most definitely isn’t Tom. It is actually some random photo I pulled off her Insta; I think he might be the husband of her writer friend with the breastmilk fetish. Anyway, they were at a party and he has his arm round her waist and his eyes on her cleavage. Anything to help muddy the water. Leah’s messages are full of exchanges with Tom in which she begs him to leave her alone. In which he accuses her of having a relationship with someone else. The last one she received from him says: Either I have you or no one will.

Megan and I watch the TV as they report on the finding. Tom Eagleton has been arrested on suspicion of causing harm. They tried to charge him with murder, but the judge had decreed it was too early and there was no evidence that Leah had been killed. This part wasn’t reported on the news; I had to hack a few emails to get that snippet.

There is a further update on the nine o’clock news. Tom Eagleton has now been charged with the murder of Leah Patterson. Hair and blood have been found in the boot of his car. A shovel caked in mud was in his garage. There were no clean sheets in his closet, nor towels for that matter. His bathroom stank of bleach.

People think corpus delicti means there must be a body. It’s not a reference to a literal body though, it means “body of evidence,” and there is more than enough of it to charge Tom without an actual body. Not just to charge him, either. With everything I have been putting out there during some nightly excursions, not all of which the police have actually uncovered yet, he will be convicted by a jury of his peers and face a mandatory life sentence. Although it might be fun to leave a little bit of a body for them to find. A few fingers maybe? Enough that they will know she is dead, but without enough of a body for there to ever be a tie to Megan.