There’s so much wrong with what she has said that I don’t know where to start. Jamie’s throat is spurting, but his eyes are closed. She must have knocked him out with the butt of the gun first. Fiona is getting to her feet, the black-handled knife in her hand, the blade extending down her side, glinting silver against her black jeans. I’ve seen this before. “The knife . . .”

“He must have brought it from home. I recognize it,” she says, but I meant the other knife that she’s holding, the one I used to cut the twine. I’ve seen her before, holding it. When she came to the door of my bedroom. Her face is calm; her voice is quiet. “He was going to hurt me. He was going ballistic.”

“No.” My words are quiet. “No, he wasn’t.”

She considers that. “But he was going to hurt me.”

“I . . .” It’s true. Any way this played out, Jamie was going to hurt her. “Yes.” I should be trying to stop the blood. I move quickly to grab a couple of tea towels. “Is this how it ends?”

“Now you believe me?” The irony in her question doesn’t escape me.

“Maybe.” I’m on my knees, awkwardly pressing the tea towel to the gash in Jamie’s throat.

“There’s no point.”

“I know.” I’m already too late to save him. It was always too late to save him; Fiona did a remarkably effective job. But it has to look like we tried.

“What will you tell the police? And Carrie?” she asks, kneeling to help me press the tea towels. She’s blocking the candlelight and Jamie is in darkness now. Not that he’s Jamie anymore. Maybe he was never the Jamie I thought he was.

“Don’t you know?”

She shakes her head. “I saw this. I dinnae ken what happens next. Carrie . . .” she falters, and closes her eyes briefly. “I dinnae want her to have to lie.”

A dozen different sentences start in my head, but I can’t complete any of them. I don’t want Carrie to have to lie either. And she would. I know she would do that for Fiona.

Carrie appears in the doorway. “Callum is safe—Glen has him. The police are . . . Oh my God.” Both hands are at her mouth. Clean hands, not a spot of blood on them. I look at mine. They’re clean too, actually—it’s the tea towels that are sodden—but they don’t feel it. “What happened? Is he . . . ?”

“I think so,” I say. I can hardly believe this is happening.

“He got free. He had a knife,” Fiona explains. “He was going—”

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Oh my God, you’re bleeding.” Carrie rushes to her side, standing over her. One of her clean hands is on Fiona’s shoulder. Her enormous eyes are fixed on Fiona’s face.