I had barely slept, the events of the last two days going round and round in my head. Anna had been murdered, people had seen us rowing in the street. I was in bed with her husband. And I’d found her body, and run away, and lied about it. I couldn’t think of any explanation for what had happened that made sense, and soon the birds had started and the sky outside the bedroom window was turning grey. I got up, put on some tracksuit bottoms of Alex’s, rolling up the legs, and left. Alex didn’t stir, his tanned arm thrown over his face, breath coming evenly. I lingered to watch him until I realised I was being creepy.

The streets of Coldwater were mercifully empty, just a street cleaner and a few older people up and about already, but all the same I hunched down into Alex’s clothes, wishing I had a hat or scarf. As I went down the lane to my cottage and saw that it was safe, the police gone, I felt myself relax a little. Audrey’s house was also shuttered up, curtains drawn. I let myself in, missing the scrabble of Brandy’s paws as she came to greet me. The house showed signs that someone had been searching, drawers left slightly open, ornaments askew. I’d have to clean it all to make it feel like mine again.

I realised I needed to eat something. Yesterday had not been great food-wise – a disappointing sandwich at lunchtime, too many cups of police-station coffee, and constant anxiety. What did I have in the house? Some eggs maybe. I went to the fridge, and that was when I saw it. The message on the front. The magnetic Scrabble tiles that were a Christmas present from the previous year’s interns. They had been rearranged from the random jumble they were in the day before. Five of them pushed into the centre to make a word. A name.

CASEY.

Kill Me Now

(podcast transcript, March 2015)

-So can we talk about Casey Adams – the Mary Poppins killer? God, that is so dark.

-I dunno. I could see Mary popping someone’s ass if they stepped out of line. You think she’s guilty then?

-Who else could it be, though, Ali? That’s the question.

-It is indeed. Today we’ll discuss the smoking gun – literally a gun. Why were Casey Adams’ fingerprints on it? She was British and British people don’t know much about guns. She said she picked it up off the floor. But how would it have got there in the first place? The gardener said he didn’t even know there was a gun in the house, so the dad wasn’t in the habit of showing it to people.

-His prints were on it too, yeah? The dad’s?

-Yeah. I mean, it was his gun.

-What about the mom’s?