I finished with Ross and went to some of the pictures I had logged of Emiline Wilson and Freda Davey. The one of Emiline was from the trip she and Randolph had made to California five or six years ago, and was a shot of her under a street sign on Rodeo Drive. She was in her late fifties, attractive, in good shape, a half-smile on her face that seemed almost playful. I looked at her, trying to imagine how an affair might have started between her and Patrick and how long it might have been going on. The fact that she and Randolph were the least known of the villagers – and that their vehicle was missing – fed into the idea of something illicit, even if there was no proof, and between her and Freda, Emiline seemed a more likely fit for something like this. In a picture of Freda Davey close to me, she was in a running vest, a number pinned to her top, at the start of a half-marathon. It had been taken seven or eight years before she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time, her face fuller, unburdened by the fear and dread that would come for her later. Even in remission, though, Freda had been struggling with ongoing complaints, niggling illnesses, and when she was diagnosed with it a second time, such a profound and life-changing event made it hard to imagine that she’d gone looking for, let alone been open to, something as consuming and emotionally complex as an affair.

I tabbed between photos of Patrick and Emiline, trying to seek out the tethers between them, and then a moment later my phone started humming.

I thought about not answering, still trying to unravel the lie that Patrick had told, and who else was a part of the fiction, but when I looked at the display, I saw Spike’s number. I remembered that I’d asked him to get me two months of phone records for all nine residents of Black Gale.

If I was trying to untangle a lie, phones were a good place to start.

We spoke for a few minutes as he filled me in on what he’d done and how he’d structured the file, and then I switched to my inbox and saw a PDF already waiting.

I dragged it on to the desktop.