‘What do you suggest, then? Hand her in?’ Joe says, not gesturing to or looking at Frannie. ‘It’s done,’ he adds. ‘We can’t take it back. We can only go forward.’

‘To what?’

‘We need to do it,’ Frannie says.

Joe looks at Cathy. ‘Do you still have his wallet?’

It is a sentence which, Cathy feels sure, is significant. The moment they cross from panic to planning. From an accident to behaving like killers. She shakes off that feeling, surely incorrect – how could she possibly tell the future? – and meets her brother’s eyes.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’

13.

Now

Jason’s Office, mid-to-late February, 5.00 p.m.

Jason has a plate of custard creams on his desk. ‘Left over from a team meeting,’ he says vaguely, gesturing to them as I walk across his office and sit down in the chair. ‘Help yourself.’

I reach and take one.

‘You are clearly reluctant to discuss what you did,’ he says bluntly. He takes off the top of a custard cream, brings the cream side to his mouth, then seems to think better of it and eats it in one go. ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘I mean – wouldn’t you be?’

Jason has his head in profile, studying the bookcase. I can’t read his expression. ‘Sure,’ he says, and I think he means it. He doesn’t think that I am a monster. ‘Okay. Let me ask you this: can you pinpoint the moment that you knew you wouldn’t get away with it?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Absolutely, definitely.’

‘All right, then – why don’t we start there, today?’ He passes me the plate. I take another two biscuits. We eat them wordlessly, looking at each other. As he holds my gaze, he inclines his head to the left, like a bird listening out for noise.

‘I was sitting on reception,’ I say. ‘It was late. Late-ish. We’d already closed up. It wasn’t getting dark yet but it was that kind of gloomy day.’

‘Okay,’ Jason says. Still no pen and paper. Just the custard creams and his sharp mind. ‘What were you doing?’

‘I’d done some general filing … things like that.’

‘Right. So this was – back in the UK.’

‘Oh yeah – of course. Back to work. We were all trying to pretend everything was normal. Everything was fine.’

‘How successfully, would you say?’

‘Pretty unsuccessfully …’ He throws me a wan smile that says, clearly. I look around me at his office. A place I never thought I’d be.

‘So, next …’ he prompts.

‘I logged on to the computer.’

Jason keeps his body language casual, dunking a biscuit in his tea, but his gaze is as sharp as a needle, never leaving mine.

‘And that was when I saw it. That was when I knew,’ I say.

‘Knew what?’ he asks, looking directly at me.

I shrug. ‘That we had no choice.’

14.

Then

Joe

The villa is full of signs. Little metal statutes of Jesus on the walls, tiny, palpable stigmata on his hands. A palm-sized ceramic sacred heart nailed to the top of the fireplace, a cross erupting from the top of it like a sword. Their presence has never felt significant, until now, when Joe feels watched and judged at every turn. He doesn’t even believe in God. And yet.