I pull The Insider out of the leather pouch and start to flick through the pages. There are photographs of schoolgirls in yellow blouses and maroon blazers, standing in lines, smiling. Each picture represents an achievement—money raised for charity, a victory in an independent schools’ public-speaking competition. On the next page there are more pictures of Villiers girls, this time in yellow tracksuits and swimwear, holding up trophies. I see Claire Draisey, the woman I met last night, also in a yellow tracksuit, and find out from reading the caption that as well as being Director of Boarding, she coaches the netball and synchronised swimming teams.

On the opposite page there’s a picture of a modern-looking building, a white-walled hexagon with large windows on every side. I’m about to pass over it when the name ‘Cecily Wyers’ catches my attention. The building has been named after her. I read the paragraph beneath the photo. It quotes Martha Wyers’ mother, an old Villiers girl, as saying she’s always been passionate about the arts, which is why she and her husband donated most of the money that turned the school’s dream of its own dedicated theatre and drama studio space into a reality. I stare at these five lines of text long after I’ve finished reading them, as if they might tell me something about Martha that I don’t already know.

Odd that Cecily didn’t think to name the building after Martha instead of herself.

I’m about to close the magazine and put it back in the pocket behind the driver’s seat when my eye is drawn to another name, at the bottom of the last page. No. It can’t be. I look at it, half expecting it to disappear, but it doesn’t. Goundry. The name is there, but the context makes no sense. A prickly sensation starts to creep along my arms, up my back and neck and behind my knees, as if I’ve got pins and needles in my skin.

I re-read the paragraph. Goundry’s not a common name. If it were Wilson or Smith, I wouldn’t have noticed. I drop the magazine, open my bag and pull out the sales list Mary gave me. There’s the name again: Mrs C. A. Goundry. An address in Wiltshire. My heart judders an irregular, drawn-out beat as something else leaps out at me from the page. I didn’t read the addresses before; I was too stunned by the nine names being there, looking so innocent and not at all mysterious—the people who bought paintings from Aidan’s 2000 exhibition.

The address given for Ruth Margerison, who bought a painting called Who’s the Fairest?, is Garstead Cottage, The Avenue, Wrecclesham. Mary’s cottage. I stare at the handwritten list. I know that writing, the curly ‘M’ of Margerison . . .

Disorientated and panicky, I clear my throat. ‘Excuse me?’

The driver turns off the radio. ‘Yes, miss?’