“Say goodbye to this place,” I say out loud. “We’re moving to a much better home.”

We are. It’s a cottage with a thatched roof and a smaller, more manageable garden filled with rhododendrons. It’s not so far away, Deborah can still visit. We’ll be away from the bad memories, as well as Tamsin and her constant comments:

Did you really not suspect a thing, Marie? I’ve never known a murderer before. I wouldn’t admit this to just anyone, but it’s really quite morbidly exciting! Not for Greg, obviously, that’s just awful. She pulled a sad face. Do you know I’ve had offers to sell my story? I’ve said no, of course, but when you think about it, she just used to sit there, in our book group as if butter wouldn’t melt!

If only she knew...

We are still awaiting Camilla’s trial.

Stuart stuck to his word. So far, he has been utterly convincing as my alibi. I’ll give him that.

I’ve promised Camilla that I will look after Louise to the utmost of my ability, despite her threats to drag me down, too, until I reminded her of our conversation, that she is the one with a violent history, not me.

It’s a shame I don’t know where she hid the knife. She’ll never tell me now.

“I’ll love Louise as my own,” I said. “She’ll want for nothing. I’ll treat her as if she was the daughter Charlie and I would’ve had.”

She gave me a strange look when I said that. I think it was then that the penny really dropped, that she knew or suspected what I’d done, but visiting hours came to an end. She had to return to her cell.

Really, what did she expect me to do? I’ll have to watch my back if and when she’s released. I can’t erase the look on her face during the moments she stabbed Greg or forget what she did to Charlie when he rejected her. Her ex in Canada had a lucky escape, it seems to me.

I walk around to the front of the house and lift Jack out of his buggy. Goldie barges ahead, pushing the front door open. I survey the empty rooms, full of cardboard boxes. Stuart took a lot of persuading to put the house on the market but eventually agreed to the ever-hopeful fresh start we all crave and need to believe exists.

All the boxes are, of course, labeled. Inside one marked Louise’s Bedroom is a gift, a framed picture. It is of me, Charlie and Camilla. I now have the power to reveal his true identity. I won’t be cruel, I won’t completely destroy the tale Camilla spun about her father: a whirlwind holiday romance. However, I can take charge of the narrative now.

I hear tires on the gravel. Still holding my precious Jack tightly, I open the door.

A woman in a trouser suit emerges from a black Audi.

“Mrs. Thompson?” she calls out.