She stayed up after the young police officer left. There was no getting to sleep for her after that anyway. Her reaction when she heard the news about Nathan had surprised even her. Maybe it was the sheer relief at finally being free of him? At everything going to plan. She had to admit it didn’t hurt her case either. She looked like she was suitably grieving for him, and for her pub being burned to a ruin.

She thought about seeing Ben later. Could they could finally be together out in the open? The thought gave her butterflies in her stomach. She would have been lost without him these past years. But could they ever work? She wanted to move on from her past, and Ben was so entwined with it that she wasn’t sure she could ever look at him and not think of Nathan, of the terrible thing they had done.

It was after Nathan told Patrick about Tommy’s murder that Grace’s plan started to take shape. She knew Ben would be able to find out where Nathan was keeping the gun Jake had handled. He was still one of the few people Nathan trusted and Ben had come through for her, as he always did. He told Grace he knew where the gun was and how he could get it when she needed him to. It wasn’t too difficult to get Nathan exactly where she wanted him. He’d become quite predictable. Every Monday he’d turn up at her house for some sort of torture. She knew if she wasn’t at the house, he’d come looking for her in the pub, which was exactly what he’d done the night before.

She already had the open bottle of Chivas Regal prepared. She made sure that it was only a quarter full, so he’d drink the entire contents quickly. She laced it with enough ketamine to topple a rhino. She hoped that after what happened last time he took it, he’d have a similar reaction, and fortunately for her, he did.

Once she knew it was working, she sent Ben an innocuous text message to signal he could make his way over. He was going to start the fire. She didn’t want to be there for that. She couldn’t trust herself to go through with burning down her beloved pub. And anyway, to divert any suspicion that it was a possible insurance scam, she needed to be far away from that place. She made sure she made a phone call to Jake from her landline as soon as she got home, to prove she was there when the fire started.