“No. But it helped that she provided the missing pieces of the information.”

“Did you and Nina...? What I’m trying to say, was she the woman you loved?”

“Yes. We clicked immediately. But...she was married, unhappily, but she said that her husband had a hold over her. And the only way she could make amends for a mistake she’d made was to stick it out with him. She didn’t love him.”

“Yet you moved here to be close to her?”

“She wasn’t happy about it at first, but she came round. We only slept together once more after I moved. It happened so naturally and unexpectedly. We went out for a walk together. I intended to take photos of the bluebells. Nina longed to paint them. There were carpets of blue—we both agreed that we’d never seen them look so stunning. We got carried away, we couldn’t stop.”

“I get the overall picture, thanks. Think about what you’ve just told me. Can’t you see, Greg, when you talk about integrity, sometimes it’s not that simple?”

He ignores me. “We knew it was wrong, that she’d never leave Stuart, but I hoped. And then it was too late. She came to me for help, so I gave it, willingly, because I respected her and had feelings for her. But I didn’t know the real her, it turns out. It made me feel like I’d been lied to or misled.”

For someone who gave me such a live and let live lecture in his office, he is very judgmental.

Greg hates books where the villain gets away with it. He likes bad people to get their just deserts. He believes in an eye for an eye. He believes in vengeance.

“This isn’t a novel, Greg. You’ve got conspiracy theories about actual people with real lives who could be gravely impacted. Children, I’m talking about.”

He doesn’t budge. If I don’t accompany him to a police station (“which will, long-term-wise, help you, Marie. You really don’t need to be an accessory by keeping silent”), he’ll go alone.

“I’m being cruel to be kind, Marie. One day you’ll thank me. The longer you ignore this, the worse it will get.”

“You’ve got this all wrong, Greg. You’re going to get fined for wasting police time. I’m sure there’s nothing they can do about an alleged historic crime abroad, possibly caused by someone who has passed away. It will just cause grief for her family. And me. I thought we were friends.”

“If you knew she’d done absolutely nothing wrong, you wouldn’t be trying to buy time. Do the right thing. I can’t keep such damaging knowledge inside my own head for much longer. It’s unhealthy and stressful. On top of that, her accomplice, or silent witness, whichever you’d prefer, is Camilla.”

Good Lord. Who does he think he is?

“There’s guilt in silence,” he says. “It gives away more than people realize.”

He’s not wrong. If Charlie’s accident had been genuine, I believe that Camilla and Nina would’ve tried to get help and spoken up about what happened. Their guilt was most definitely in their silence.