We sat in horrified, shell-shocked silence in the lounge, all of us gathered in one place, trying to absorb the horrifying news we had carried up from the gorge. Some crying, arms around shoulders, others staring at the carpet. Lucy and Daniel sat close together by my side, both in tears, holding hands. They hadn’t done that for years.

A pair of officers from the Gendarmerie office in Béziers had been notified and would be here within the hour, Lepine had told us. Despite his promise that one of the firemen would stay in the gorge until then, he had pulled his young crewman out at the last minute, insisting he needed his whole team to attend a road accident on the nearby D909. Izzy’s body was covered and marked off with red-and-white tape, and Alistair had volunteered to go down and wait, to ensure nothing was disturbed before an officer could get here. We were told – strictly and without exception – that no one was to touch or move the body.

Finally, Russ spoke up.

‘A crime scene? Really?’

‘Potential crime scene,’ I said.

‘I suppose I assumed that it was an accident.’

Sean nodded grimly, tears on his face. He looked wretched. Broken. ‘Me too,’ he said.

I wiped my eyes with a tissue that was already sodden.

‘Yes, but the police will have to start from an assumption that all possibilities are open, then work their way back from that. They have to rule out all other options before they declare it an accident. That’s what UK police would do.’

Jennifer sat with her boys, each hand tightly clutching one of theirs, staring ahead, unseeing. She looked shattered, defeated, devastated. I suppose we all did.

‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘But what if it wasn’t an accident? What if it was something else?’ Russ asked.

‘Like what?’ Sean said.

There was more silence, for a long moment. No one wanted to say it. Eventually, I spoke up.

‘Foul play,’ I said quietly.

‘But that’s crazy,’ Rowan said, looking around the room. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Sean said abruptly.

‘Of course,’ Russ said.

‘Crazy,’ Jennifer agreed.

I studied the faces arranged around the lounge, ten of us where just an hour ago there had been twelve. Friends and families. Rowan and Russ, Jennifer, Jake and Ethan, Lucy, Daniel, little Odette.

And Sean, sitting next to me with his strong arm around my shoulders.

Even though I knew what it meant, it wasn’t until that moment that the enormity of it hit me. It felt as if all eyes in the room were on me.

Izzy had been involved with my husband. She had been about to confess to their affair, about to detonate a bomb under his marriage. About to expose his adultery and lies.

And now she was dead.