‘But I have no idea why Odette would think she saw me with Izzy. I was much more worried about getting my boys out of there.’

It was true that Odette could not be considered a particularly reliable witness. If we were all totally honest with each other for once – and as parents, we had all learned long ago never to be totally honest when it came to talking about each other’s children – she had been acting up since the day we arrived. It was what she did. The fits of temper, the fussiness with food, the bedtime routine, were all ways of getting attention from parents whose focus was more often on their mobile phones.

And yet . . .

And yet she had been sure, she had been positive, that she had seen Jennifer at the cliff edge with Izzy. She had been near enough to see, despite the smoke. Near enough to hear the two of them arguing.

They were shouting. Saying mean things to each other. And then the smoke blowed in the way and when it was gone again only Jake and Ethan’s mummy was standing there. The other lady was gone.

It didn’t fit. It didn’t make sense, didn’t mesh with what I knew.

Until a few minutes ago I had been resigned to the fact that I had discovered the sordid, dirty truth at the heart of my marriage, was resigned to the fact that I would not lie to the police, would not withhold evidence, would not go against everything I believed in. Resigned to the fact that my husband – the father of my children, the man I loved with all my heart, the man I had wanted to grow old with – had betrayed me. Resigned to the fact that betrayal had somehow tumbled into murder.

But Odette’s words didn’t fit.

And there was something else, something more, just beyond my eyeline. I could sense it was there, but when I tried to look straight at it, it slid out of sight.

What if I had been looking at everything the wrong way, all this time? A few days ago I had been convinced that Rowan was the guilty party, then Jennifer, and now Izzy. I had been getting it wrong all week. Now my friend was dead – and maybe I was still wrong. What if I had let my emotions get the better of me? What if I hadn’t parked my ‘work brain’, as Sean liked to call it, but put it to use here instead?