‘No, we met well after that,’ I say, smiling, believing my upcoming nuptials might lift the mood, but no. Detective Lee speaks next.

‘And Faye Connolly, where does she live now?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen Faye for years… I know she’s a doctor now but we lost contact.’

‘Fine.’ Detective Mullins closes his notebook and stands. He holds out a card. ‘I’m going to give you my direct number. If you think of anything that might be of use to the investigation, ring this number.’

‘Is that it, am I done here?’ I take the card from his hand.

‘For now.’

A wave of relief passes over me. That wasn’t so bad. They didn’t ask anything too difficult or anything that would have necessitated a lie.

I look at the time and realise I’m going to be late for work. I’ll have to ring Muriel to let her know I’m on my way because the cafe can be very busy in the morning. But first I need to get rid of these two.

Lucas is still standing behind me when my phone rings from the speaker stand that’s beside Detective Siobhan Lee. It rings a few times before she lifts it.

‘Do you want this?’ she says. I can see her reading the screen before she hands it to me but now the phone has stopped ringing.

‘It’s probably work. I’ll ring them back.’ I take the phone and walk towards the door. Relief washes over me when they walk outside.

‘I’ll ring if I think of anything,’ I say, closing the door behind them, hoping I never have to see their faces again. But something tells me I will. Especially when I look at my phone and see the missed call the detective read on my screen was from Faye Connolly.

Chapter Fourteen

The detective is going to think I’m a liar. I told her I hadn’t seen or heard from Faye Connolly in years and the next thing, she sees her name flashing on my phone screen. If I had known before the detective left that it was Faye who called I could have told her the truth. That Faye rang the previous day and I just saved her contact name in my phone in case she rang back. Which she hasn’t yet. But then the detective might say, why is she ringing now, all of a sudden, if you haven’t heard from her in years? Are you both trying to get your story straight, Miss Moore? That would have been worse. My face would have gone red and the detective would have known I was hiding something.