Evan nods, hands still over his mouth, skin in greyscale.

‘She needed me. We didn’t know what else to do … we – the blood … we had no choice.’

‘Right.’

‘Wouldn’t you – wouldn’t you do the same? If it were your sister – your brother?’

Evan looks at her for a long moment. There’s sweat along the very top of his hairline. The sheen catches the overhead lamps. ‘I’m an only child,’ he says eventually.

‘We’ll all go to prison,’ Joe says. Cathy glances at him. It won’t help, this aggressive line, but she understands why Joe takes it.

Suddenly, Cathy is not glad he’s there with her, after all. That she is on that side, and not on Evan’s. They are monsters, they must be. She wishes fervently that she weren’t here, trying to make a murder, a body burial, and the rest, sound necessary, and that she was there, with Evan. In shock. Aghast. The Cathy from before the phone call.

‘It’s … this is …’ he says.

‘I know,’ Cathy whispers, trying to breathe deeply. ‘I know.’

‘How …’ Evan starts to say, but the pieces are falling into place around him, clearly. Evan is a total news junkie. He will know all about that case.

‘He was a cop,’ Evan says and for just a second Cathy feels almost proud that she was able to call his reaction, to know him. ‘Who decided to cover it up?’

‘I mean. Everyone. No one.’

She stares across the room, thinking. Trying to employ the skills she’s been using all her life: logic, reasoning. But it’s impossible when it’s personal. When she’s involved.

‘What am I supposed to do with this information?’ he says. He looks at Cathy. He’s in profile in the dimness, turned sideways on to her.

‘I mean –’

‘We’ll all go to prison,’ Joe says again. ‘We will all go to prison if you say anything. Paul won’t have a mum. He already doesn’t have a dad.’

Evan says nothing at that, his mouth twisting up on one side in some sort of ironic smile. Cathy thinks of him delivering those pizzas and winces. Something about the situation feels more precarious because of that, because of who he is, because of what they know about him and witnessed him doing.

‘Okay, great,’ Evan says, with an edge Cathy’s not sure she’s ever heard in his voice. Joe’s never liked him, but Cathy doesn’t mind him. He isn’t especially interesting to Cathy, doesn’t incense her the way he does Joe. But interesting is overrated. Interesting is having had sex only twice, aged thirty-five.

‘You weren’t there,’ Joe says.

‘No, I wasn’t!’ Evan says. ‘How can I not tell anybody this? This is – I mean … it’s actually mad. I’m committing a crime, aren’t I, in covering up your crime?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Cathy says earnestly. ‘But – for someone you love. If they rang and …’ she starts, but it’s no use, not really. Nobody understands the dilemma until they face it. Cathy wouldn’t.