The heat of Sean’s arm over my shoulders was suddenly unbearable. He had always radiated heat, always warmed our bed on cold nights, and I had long joked that he was the hot-blooded Irishman who had melted my cool English heart.

Hot-blooded like a killer?

I shifted slightly away from him on the sofa.

‘Crazy or not,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level, ‘if the police end up going down that road, they’ll have an immediate shortlist of suspects.’

‘Who?’ Rowan said.

‘Well, the people in this room.’

She was shaking her head. ‘One of us?’

‘Yes.’

There was another uncomfortable silence while that sank in.

‘In that case,’ Rowan said finally, ‘we should probably get our story straight.’

‘Our story?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just – you know. What happened.’

I wanted to hear Sean’s story more than anything. I was tired of suspicion, of guesswork, of only knowing half the facts and trying to work out the other half for myself. It had been five days since discovering the messages on his phone, five days of anguish and lies and heartbreak that had ended in tragedy. So I wanted to hear Sean’s truth. I owed it to my friend. But at the same time, I was terrified of what he might say.

‘How about the truth?’ I said.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Rowan said.

‘OK. The truth.’ I turned to look at my husband, my eyes drawn again to the three vertical scratches on the side of his face. ‘How about we start with you, Sean?’

‘Me?’

‘Did you see Izzy in the woods?’

He shrugged, shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. I found Lucy well off the path, then, when I went back in, Russ was already on his way back with Odette.’

Liar.

But Rowan was nodding. ‘I saw you heading back down to the clearing as we were coming out.’

‘Then what?’ I said.

‘Then I looked around a bit more for anyone else, but the smoke was really thick by that point and I could hardly see anything. I blundered into that thorn bush like a proper eejit and thought it was time to get the hell out of there.’

‘You didn’t see Izzy?’ I asked again.

‘Nope.’ His voice cracked. ‘I wish I had.’

‘Did anyone else see her?’

Everyone shook their heads.

‘No one saw her fall?’

Silence.

By virtue of my job, I knew something that no one else in this room did. Pushing someone from a significant height – a tower block window or a rooftop or a cliff edge – was tough for investigators because there were virtually no forensic traces unless there was a struggle beforehand. No murder weapon – just gravity; no blood spatter on the offender’s clothing. No defensive wounds. No forensics to link victim and perpetrator. Without a witness, CCTV, or a confession, it was incredibly difficult to prove the victim didn’t just fall.