“They’re lucky.”

There was a silence.

“What did we do wrong?”

Jude groped for words but she didn’t find them. She made a sound instead.

“I have a favor to ask you,” said Tara.

“Oh?”

Jude wanted to hurl her mobile into the road and watch the cars crush it. No more favors, ever again.

“It’s not much. I just want you to go to the house.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Please, Jude. I can’t do it. I’m hundreds of miles away, with Alfie. And there are things that he wants. When he gets upset, which he does a lot, he asks for them.”

“Can’t you get someone to post them?”

“Please.”

“There must be somebody else . . .”

So it was that the following morning, Jude returned once more to the house.

There were still crime-scene tapes up, and she could see that one of the windows at the front was broken. All the curtains were closed and she couldn’t see any lights on. Perhaps no one was there—because how could you stay on in a house where a few days ago a woman, a housemate and friend, had been slaughtered?

But even as she was thinking this, a curtain on the first floor was pulled open and a face looked out. Irina, gazing down at the street, her face like a tragic mask with a gash of red lipstick across the mouth.

Then a voice came from behind her.

“Jude.”

She turned to see Doc.

“Hello.” She hadn’t prepared herself properly.

“Have you come to help us?”

“What?”

“Come on in, then.”

The house wasn’t empty but full and in a state of dynamic disarray: people were going up and down the stairs with boxes, coming down the hall carrying pieces of furniture. Someone staggered out of the conservatory with a stone statue in his arms.

Jude stepped into the hall. She heard the sound of banging from upstairs and someone shout something unintelligible. Then a clattering and a giant wicker laundry basket came tumbling down the steps.

She ducked into the front room to avoid a collision. A man was up a ladder, chipping away at the large plaster rose in the center of the ceiling.

“Hi,” he said, looking down at her. “Pass me that screwdriver, can you?”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to take things like that,” said Jude, passing the screwdriver. “It’s part of the house.”

“Are you a lawyer or something?”

“No.”

“Vin told me to.”

Jude felt her stomach lurch. “Is he here?”

“Vin? Nah. He’s taken a load of stuff to the dump, but he’ll be back in half an hour or an hour if you want to see him.”

“I don’t.”

“Jude!”

Irina was in the doorway, her arms full of curtains.

“Hello.”

“You came in our hour of need.”

“I just came to collect—”