“It’ll just be a moment. It won’t take longer than drinking a cup of coffee.”

“Sorry,” said Jude, and tried to walk past him. He stepped in the way.

“We can go to a crowded café,” he said. “There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“I’m not worried about anything. It’s just that we don’t have anything to say to each other.”

“Ten minutes. Then you don’t ever have to see me again. Otherwise I’ll feel like we have unfinished business.”

Vin’s tone and expression seemed affable, but every word he said sounded like a threat. Would talking to him make him go away forever or would it encourage him? Was she about to make the same mistake all over again?

She said okay, and a couple of minutes later she was sitting at a wooden table in a café much like the one to which she had gone with Liam almost a year earlier. Perhaps it was the same one. She couldn’t remember. Vin bought a camomile tea for Jude and a cappuccino for himself. Before drinking he tore two sachets of sugar, tipped them into his cup and stirred it. He saw her expression and laughed.

“I suppose you’re more a no-milk, no-sugar sort of girl.”

“Ten minutes,” said Jude.

“Come on,” said Vin. “You must have something you want to ask me. You must be curious.”

“I know everything I need to know.”

Now Vin frowned. “The police questioned me, just as they questioned you. They didn’t find anything to charge me with, nothing at all. They went through everything. They searched the house. They took away my computer and my phone. They went through my texts and my emails and my Facebook messages and my Instagram and probably other things I didn’t even know I had. Nothing. Nada.”

Jude shrugged: it meant nothing to her. What Vin and Danny had done together, what they had planned, what they had concealed, wasn’t the kind of thing you put in an email. She couldn’t let it go entirely. She had to say something.

“I know you arranged the film. The film on YouTube that gave you an alibi.”

She expected him to look defensive but he only smiled again.

“We were having a good time at a party. I asked someone to film it. That isn’t a crime.”

“You seem quite cheerful, considering your best friend and the woman you loved have both been murdered and you are responsible for both of those things.”

“Time has passed,” said Vin breezily. “It was difficult at first but I’ve been through the stages of grief. I’ve arrived at acceptance.”

“I’d say you’re stuck at denial.”

He laughed again. His laugh made her want to punch him.

“That’s good. You’re sharp. I always liked that about you. You know that night we had, exploring each other—”