‘I don’t know what I’ll do without him.’ She looks out to her audience, a single solitary tear rolling down her cheek. She brushes it away with long, delicate fingers. ‘As you all know, Jonathan and I weren’t blessed with children. He would have made a wonderful father—’ murmurs of assent from the room ‘—but it wasn’t meant to be.’ She looks skyward. ‘God obviously had other plans for us. For him. But now, I just can’t understand what that plan could be.

‘Except I know what Jonathan would say.’ She smiles, beaming. ‘Be happy, Amy. Go on, live a happy life. And never forget me.’

She looks at the huge photo, displayed at the front of the church. ‘I’ll never forget you, Jonathan.’

Amy finishes, then steps down from the podium. Freya suppresses an urge to slow clap.

There are more murmurs from the room. ‘That was wonderful,’ the friend whispers in front of Freya.

Butler leans close to her. ‘Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?’ he whispers into her ear.

Freya frowns. She knows what Jon would say, and it wasn’t the pious, trite words coming from Amy’s mouth.

Catch the bitch, he’d tell her. Catch the bitch that killed me.

32

Amy feels eyes on her as she walks out of the church, Jonathan’s mother on her arm. His parents have aged markedly since she last saw them, the effects of their only son’s death clear on their faces. She feels a pang of sympathy, but it quickly fades as she basks in the attention. It’s all gone as she planned. The flowers, the hymns, the speeches: all perfect.

After, they eat crustless salmon sandwiches and soft, delicate pastries. She murmurs words of thanks to the people who come and talk to her, sharing their stories, saying how much Jonathan will be missed, how wonderfully she did today. But she doesn’t need their affirmation; she knows how brilliant she was.

The detectives have gone. They leave without a word, and she feels a certain impermeability. They can’t touch her at his memorial. They can’t ask their ridiculous questions, not today. But she felt their stares, their judgement.

She walks into the kitchen to instruct the staff to pass round more bottles of wine, and stands there, watching the mourners through the door.

For a while Amy suspected Jonathan had been having an affair. But he’d been careful, never leaving his phone unattended, always shoved in his back pocket, always locked. But it would beep, and he’d smile. She’d ask why and he’d say it was Kal, but she knew. The response for the detectives when they told her was no more than an act. Perfectly executed. She knew there had been another woman.

And what better time to work out who it was than at his memorial.