‘That,’ Pete said, glancing towards her concealed hand. ‘You are, aren’t you? And you were after Ralph, too. I tried to ask you then but you cut me off. But we can’t not talk about it now. You’re wondering if he—’

‘Don’t.’

‘You have to tell—’

‘No! There’s no way. It was a lifetime ago!’

‘But you said that twat at the record company found you last year.’

Meredith’s face had turned a sickly yellowish colour, and Pete felt compassion flood through him like an adrenaline rush. He put the eggs down on the counter, went across and hooked his arm casually around her neck. ‘Tell them what happened, Mez. It’s important. It’s probably nothing to do with it at all, but…’

‘Yeah. OK. I’ll tell Gemma about it. And about me and Ralph.’

‘Promise?’

‘Um … I’ll try.’

25

Gemma

Gemma could still faintly smell the bitterness of burnt orange on her fingers the next morning as she keyed in the request for information on Meredith Vincent from the General Registry. The last thing she’d seen before leaving for work was a row of empty sterilised jars, still waiting to be filled. They were like some sort of metaphor for her life – the marmalade she spent much of her free weekend making had never set and had to be flushed down the toilet. Why did work always seem easier than the rest of her life? It was a relief to be back at her desk – less so when Mavis strode in, however, his trousers slightly too tight around the crotch, his clean-shaven face like a cross-looking Action Man.

‘Morning, Mark,’ she said. ‘Nice weekend?’

‘PM results are in on both vics,’ he replied, staring at a polystyrene ceiling tile over her desk as if it was about to reveal some sort of profound secret. ‘Tell the team there’s a briefing for ten a.m., please. Lincoln’s coming in as SIO. This is an MIT investigation now.’

‘What, so they were dead before going in the water? Both of them? No!’

‘I’ll tell you in the meeting.’

He marched past her desk and on to the coffee machine. Gemma’s thoughts whirled – a maelstrom, with Meredith Vincent in the eye of the storm. What were the chances of two people close to the woman – both in terms of geography and their relationships – being murdered then dumped in water within a week of each other? This surely made Meredith a prime suspect; yet she had no motive, no beef with either victim and both were her good friends. She hadn’t had any sort of breakdown or psychiatric problems, to their knowledge.

Could someone be trying to get at Meredith? The thought seemed preposterous. A respectable, fifty-something gift-shop manager didn’t have those sorts of enemies.