‘You were getting a bit close, I had to do something to put the police back on to you.’

I tried to digest this. Not Jeremy at all. Alex had done this, left the scarf and then the knife to incriminate me. ‘So what – you took Anna to the woods, dumped her there? You knew I’d take Brandy that way in the morning.’

It was clever, I suppose. He’d thought of everything.

He was impatient. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter, all these details. I just had to do something. Can’t you see? You were the obvious suspect. Because you’re Casey Adams. You’re a murderer. A convicted murderer living right here in Coldwater.’

‘I’m an exoneree!’ I snapped, in exasperation. ‘I didn’t do it.’ But that didn’t matter. Because as long as an obvious murderer was right there, perhaps the police wouldn’t look too closely at the estranged husband, who’d maybe killed a girl before, the most likely suspect if I hadn’t been there, shiny and distracting with my dark past.

Alex laughed. He actually laughed. ‘You’re really not going to tell me the truth? OK then.’

I stared at him. I was still absorbing the idea he had killed his wife and framed me for it. ‘So you just . . . you sacrificed me.’

‘I’d have gone to prison otherwise. What about Sam? I had to think of him.’ Amazing. He somehow expected me to understand. I felt the rage crystallise inside, like a flaming coal in my chest. I thought of Rhonda’s wise words, passed on to me in the months before her execution, which I refused to believe would happen but she knew would. Fight. To your last drop of blood.

In the pen holder on my desk was a pair of scissors we used to open packs of dog food. They were large and sharp. My eyes rested on them, until they were all I could see.

I heard my voice coming from outside myself.

‘Well, Alex. You really had it all worked out, didn’t you?’

‘I tried. You do understand? I had no choice.’

Did he really think I’d forgive him? His body was sagging now, with relief. The crazy thing was, I did understand in a way. Because I too had done something terrible on the spur of the moment and had to think fast to cover it up. I too had created a cover story that looked plausible. But that didn’t mean I forgave him. After all, I had never forgiven myself.