Robin throws the bin liner in the boot and gets into the driver’s seat. He starts the engine, but Freya stops him, digs around in her bag, then jumps out. She wipes the key, the spare key, free of fingerprints and replaces it in the fake rock in the flower bed.

Then she gets back in the car and, wordlessly, they drive away. As they go, she risks a glance at her boss. His eyes are narrowed, hard ridges between his eyebrows as he stares at the road.

‘Robin…’ she begins. ‘What happens when she wakes up?’

His hands grip the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles have turned white. ‘It’ll be her word against ours. We went there, we asked her about the break-in, we left. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘We didn’t talk about Jonathan. We didn’t even walk in the door. We certainly didn’t drug her.’

Freya notices how he says ‘we’, although she’s only too clear it was her that put the pills in her drink.

‘We stick to that, we’ll be fine,’ he finishes, but Freya’s not sure who he’s trying to convince – him or her.

At last they stop at Freya’s house.

‘Robin,’ she says, and he looks at her. ‘Thank you.’

He doesn’t move. Then slowly he nods.

‘Dispose of the clothes you’re wearing,’ he says. ‘Just as a precaution. Burn them, preferably. I’ll do the same, as well as the bag in the boot.’

‘I will.’

‘And Freya?’

‘Yes?’

‘We will never speak about this again. You hear me? Never.’

But they do.

The next day is Saturday, and she spends it distracted. She wakes late, leaves the house only briefly in a taxi to retrieve her car from the police station, then watches mindless television, eats junk food. Until Robin calls.

‘Log on to the RMS,’ he says, without greeting. ‘She’s dead.’

‘What do you mean, she’s dead?’ Freya replies, her voice no more than a squeak. But it’s true.

Amy Miller has died. Her body discovered by her sister, later that night. Initial reports put it down to a tragic accident – she must have been walking round, prescription meds rampant in her system, when she fell, hitting her head on the corner of the kitchen worktop. Massive subdural haemorrhage. Would have taken her a while to die, but with no one there to help her, she had no hope.

‘That’s it, Freya,’ Robin says, his voice low and final. ‘It’s over.’

She hangs up. He’s right, she knows he is, but she doesn’t feel the relief she expects. It’s justice, of sorts, but all Freya can feel is the guilt. She did it. She didn’t intend to kill, but because of her Amy Miller is dead.

She stands, numb, in the middle of her living room. And then her legs can’t hold her any more.