‘The local boy being?’ Lizzie asked.

‘I thought I was doing something good, for Eliza,’ Rob said. ‘That’s why I agreed to do it.’

‘Robert! Don’t say another word,’ Nell said.

‘It’s fine, Mum. You don’t need to protect me,’ he said. ‘Muriel told me what Billy had done to Eliza, the abuse he’d inflicted on her and because of what had happened …’ Rob’s face flushed. ‘Anyway, I knew Eliza had been hurt, so I wanted to help. Make sure Billy was punished. I didn’t realise until years later I’d been lied to.’

‘You don’t even know how to break into a vehicle, Robert – don’t be so stupid. You were only nine.’ Nell’s eyes were wide. Hadn’t she known Muriel had asked for her son’s help?

‘Yep, and I’d been breaking in and out of the shop for months, Mother. Picking the locks was easy, so I didn’t think the truck would be too hard. And as it was, it was unlocked anyway. But I didn’t tell anyone that because I wanted to appear tough.’

‘God, so you got everyone involved in this? How did you keep it all from Tina and Mark?’ Anna looked straight at Muriel, but then jumped in again, answering her own question. ‘Oh, hang on, don’t tell me. Let me guess. For the good of the community. You told everyone who was complicit in the lies they had to stay quiet, close ranks, because Mapledon looks after their own. The real villagers, not the outsiders.’

‘Something like that,’ Muriel mumbled.

‘Look, can we get back to the main point,’ Rob said, his tone frustrated. ‘Why would Eric plant evidence? It seems a pretty drastic thing to do to pin an abduction on Billy just to finally get rid of him from the village. Didn’t Eric realise by doing that it allowed the real abductor to get away with it? There’d have been zero chance of Jonie being found alive – the police would’ve stopped looking once they had someone for it. How the hell could you have let that happen, Muriel?’

‘Exactly, Rob. How could she?’ Tina said.

‘There was no abductor, was there, Muriel?’ Lizzie said. ‘There was no rush to find Jonie Hayes because she was dead from day one.’

All eyes were squarely on Muriel Fisher.

‘Only one way she could know that, too,’ Rob said.

‘Yes. Because she knew who’d done it,’ Lizzie said, glancing towards Anna.

‘Fucking hell, Muriel,’ Rob gasped. ‘Knowing Jonie was already dead meant you weren’t worried about the police not looking any further. You made Anna lie to them about what she’d seen to get what you wanted. Billy gone from the village.’

‘But that wasn’t the main reason,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘Muriel ensured an innocent man got sent to prison in order to protect someone else.’

Anna felt her legs give way.

‘It was Eric Fisher who murdered Jonie,’ Lizzie said.

‘No. No, you’re wrong. My dad would never hurt anyone. Why would he?’ Anna said.