Lizzie shuddered. Desperately she rummaged in her pockets but the bag of marzipan, she was disappointed to find, was empty. Instead she let her fingers creep to her throat and the oak leaf necklace she always wore. It was a talisman; it grounded her.

“Where are you getting this stuff from?” she asked. “It sounds like tabloid rubbish to me. You know how they exaggerate.” She tucked her chin into her collar, seeking warmth, but the car was stuffy and the coldness was within her not outside. “We’ve all been depressed,” she said, hating herself even as she said the words. “It doesn’t mean you throw yourself down the stairs.”

“Jesus, Lizzie,” Bill said. “We’re talking clinical depression here, not feeling a bit low one day. Sometimes it’s hard to like you, you know.”

“Don’t say that, Bill,” Kat said, putting a comforting hand on Lizzie’s arm. “Don’t forget what Lizzie’s been through herself. Can’t you see she’s hurting? She doesn’t mean to sound callous.”

Lizzie felt Kat’s hand on her sleeve. Kat’s touch was comforting; it said that she understood that Lizzie was miserable, lost in painful memories, and that she wanted to pretend she wasn’t. In that moment Lizzie hated her for knowing. The trouble was that Kat had known her forever, since she had been a baby. Kat, her mother’s best friend, had stepped in when a car crash had claimed Annie Kingdom at a shockingly young age. She’d taken Lizzie under her wing, attempting to soften the haphazard and destructive parenting methods of Lizzie’s father. She’d been in Lizzie’s life ever since. There could be no secrets from Kat.

She shook Kat’s hand off. She wasn’t going to show her that it mattered.

“I still don’t see that it’s Dudley’s fault even if Amelia did kill herself,” she argued. “They hadn’t been close for years. They never saw each other; it was as though they were already separated really and Amelia must have known that Duds would want a divorce sooner or later.”

“Amelia’s friends are queuing up to say how unhappy she was.” Bill was scrolling through his Twitter feed now. “Jeez, this is bad. They’re saying she killed herself because Dudley spent all his time with you.”

“It’s nothing to do with me,” Lizzie said, through her teeth. “And do they know it’s suicide? It might just be an accident.”

“Or murder,” Kat said. “One of the gossip sites is insinuating Dudley might have arranged it.” Her head was bent, long dark hair falling forward to hide her expression. Lizzie thought she sounded excited. “They say he wanted to save on the settlement so he bumped her off.”

Lizzie felt a clutch of fear. “They’re saying Dudley killed her? That’s just...” She raised her hands in despair. “Please stop this, Kat. It’s stupid and you’re scaring me now.”

Neither Bill nor Kat paid her the slightest notice. They were both too engrossed in the breaking news.

“Didn’t they have a prenup agreement?” Bill was saying. “Christ! Doesn’t everyone have one these days?”