If it wasn’t Davis, why try to frame me and not Vera – she was his wife, the obvious choice. It didn’t make sense.

With trembling fingers, I opened my email, scrolling until I found the last one I had from Jennifer Moon, the real estate agent who’d gotten me the cottage.

I sent her an email, and then, after refreshing my inbox too many times to count, I called her.

The office number went to voice mail, so I dialed her cell instead.

She answered after five rings: ‘Hello?’ Her voice was raspy, and she sounded like she’d smoked every day for ages, nothing like the voice I’d imagined from her cheerful email font. I realized, at once, that I’d never even spoken to her before; I had made every single arrangement over email. The idea made me feel suddenly unsafe – I had no idea who I was really dealing with. My dad would have been rightly horrified.

‘Jennifer Moon?’ I started. ‘I’m sorry to bother you like this, but this is Lucy King. I’m renting the cottage that you handled, on Shadow Creek Road? Number sixty-three?’

A hesitation, and then: ‘Yes?’

‘Does anyone besides me have a key to the cottage? I don’t know, someone in maintenance, or –’

‘No,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘There are only two copies. The one you have and the one I have. I share an office with another company, so I keep the spare keys in my home, just to be safe.’ A creaking of floorboards and then a metal clacking sound. ‘I’m looking at your key – Sixty-Three Shadow Creek Road – right now, in fact. So the answer to your question is no. Just you and me. If anyone needs to do a repair, they have to sign the key out from me – and that’s only if you’ve granted access to the space. That’s the law. My company takes safety very seriously. You’ll see I have a plethora of five-star reviews on Yelp. Top rental management and realty company in the area, I’ll have you know.’

I would have laughed if I didn’t want to cry. ‘Okay,’ I said, thoughts twisting around themselves like pretzels. ‘What about prior tenants? Do you change the locks between?’

‘Why? Did something happen?’

‘I just – only because of my neighbor – John Nolan. The police are still investigating his death. I want to make doubly sure.’

A pause stretched across the line, and I found myself wondering if she was smoking a cigarette. She cleared her throat twice before she spoke. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice deepening. ‘Yes, how awful. The locks were changed, I can assure you. Now, is there anything else? I do have to get going. I have a showing this afternoon.’

‘You’re sure no one has access to that key besides you?’