‘No, not after the trolling started.’ Phoebe pulled a face. ‘It’s been predictably awful for both of them. Alex is open about having a husband. He’s put clips of Issa on there, too. Some people are totally hideous. I’m sure you know this. But anyway, Issa got to the point where he couldn’t stand seeing himself and his husband abused and threatened, and he told Alex to stop. Which really upset him. It’s his job, and the trolls are in the vast minority.’

‘Which you thought too?’ Ben asked, quietly.

‘Yes,’ Phoebe said. ‘He – Issa – came round and tried to tell me I had to weigh in on his side. I told him I wouldn’t, because it would damage Alex’s business. So he got angry and read out some of the comments, and said I was heartless when I wouldn’t budge. I thought he’d get over it, but he’s stayed angry with me.’

‘Do you think any of those trolls could have really wanted to harm your brother?’ Hanson asked.

Phoebe gave her a bleak look. ‘I didn’t think so. And I don’t really … I mean, it’s just people with no lives. Nothing better to do. They do it online because they’re too cowardly to do it for real, don’t they? I read about it.’

‘That’s generally true,’ Hanson agreed. ‘But we obviously need to check every possibility.’

Phoebe looked away, her face screwing up. ‘God. How much will – will he hate me, if it’s – if it was one of them who killed him and I could have stopped it?’

12

Louise

It sometimes surprises me, looking back, that we ever made it to our wedding day. There was so much resentment building, and so little trust.

Though, of course, that isn’t to say that there weren’t good patches. After those shaky weeks where you looked at me as if I was some kind of criminal, things gradually returned to an easier state, if not to a blissful one.

There was a good month where we managed to talk more about wedding plans than suspicions. But I can remember, clearly, how hard I tried to suffocate all the rising doubts. The number of times I turned away from you with a feeling of desolation.

So many people told me how happy I looked in the weeks before our wedding. I suppose I must have done a good job of pretending. As time went on, I even started to believe the facade. At the dinner with our families the night before, when you kept putting your arm round me and kissing me, I remember clearly thinking that everything was perfect, and would be wonderful from then on.