“Oh, I don’t fucking care.” Irina leaned back in the chair and put her hand over her eyes. “Not about the chain, or the bowl, or anything else. I’m not being greedy. I just want to know I mattered.”

“Right,” said Jude. She understood that.

“Why did he give me his guitar then?”

“Maybe because it meant a lot to him?”

“Maybe you’re right. I can’t believe he’s dead. That I’ll never see him again. I walk into the house and I expect him to be there. It’s lonely here without him, like a fire’s gone out.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and Jude made a sympathetic sound. She found it impossible to tell if Irina was being sincere or performing a grief she didn’t feel. Everything about her was exaggerated, like a Greek chorus. At the same time, there was something unexpectedly childlike about her that was touching.

“He was so alive,” said Irina. “Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. We hadn’t been in touch.”

Irina made a scoffing sound.

“What?”

“Do you think anyone in this house believes that?”

Danny was nowhere to be seen when Jude came downstairs, nor Vin. But a woman came out of the kitchen carrying Alfie on her hip with practiced ease. She looked Dutch, strong-boned with dark blond hair and smooth round cheeks, but when she spoke she had a Liverpool accent. She was wearing loose-fitting jeans, a soft rollback jumper and shabby slippers, and the ordinariness came as a relief to Jude.

“I’m Erika,” she said, holding out a hand that was broad and warm.

Jude felt a spike of recognition. Here was the woman who had called Liam’s mobile on the night he had been murdered.

“Jude.”

Erika nodded. “I know. You look younger than twenty-nine.”

“How do you know I’m twenty-nine?”

Erika laughed. “I know a lot more than that. We all do.” She disentangled Alfie’s finger from her hair. “Your full name is Judith Abigail Winter. You’re a care-of-the-elderly doctor. You studied at Bristol. You were engaged to Nathaniel Weller but aren’t any longer and we all know why that is.” Jude felt her jaw tense. “You lived with him in a flat in Stratford, but don’t any longer. You grew up in Shropshire, same as Liam. You have one brother. Your father works for the council. Your mother is a nurse. You were Liam’s girlfriend when you were eighteen. People who knew you both at the time say it was a very unlikely match. Liam was going to join you in a cottage in Norfolk the day he was killed. You’re his executor. In the last week or so you’ve been described as slight, pretty, elfin, strong, frail, distraught, defensive, defiant. Plus lots of other things I can’t remember now.”

“You’ve done your homework.”