“It’s okay. It’s not my blood.” Fiona has turned toward Carrie, but her eyes keep flicking across to me. “I was checking the ties; I didnae think they were tight enough, and then somehow he was free. He had a knife.”

“Maybe I didn’t tie him properly, with my shoulder and everything.” I look up at Carrie. “It was self-defense.”

I don’t think I’m lying.

My father is dead.

TWENTY-FOUR

We huddle on the floor in a corner of the kitchen, as far away from the body as possible, but somehow unable to leave the room. Carrie sits in the middle. I drop my head onto her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong about Fiona—sorry, Fiona,” I add. “Jamie said things . . .”

“Aye, he was good at that,” says Fiona quietly, from the other side of Carrie.

“But I shouldn’t have presumed,” I continue. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” she says.

“It’s okay,” says Carrie. She bends the arm that belongs to the shoulder I’m leaning on to stroke my hair gently with one finger. “I know you were only thinking of me.”

“Under the circumstances, Ailsa,” says Fiona thoughtfully, “I think you could maybe see your way to calling me Fi.”

I start to giggle, but it hurts too much, in my head and in my collarbone.

“Listen,” says Carrie suddenly. She left the front door ajar. The sound of a car on the gravel reaches us.

“Ailsa? Fi?” calls a familiar voice. It’s Ben. I can hear him clomping down the hallway. He must have a large torch. Or two: there are two circles of stark white light, much stronger than our three puny candles, dancing over the kitchen units before training on Jamie’s body. “What the—?”

“Fuck!” comes Ali’s voice. That makes more sense. Ali is here, and has a torch too. The sense of relief that someone has arrived to help is overwhelming. Almost immediately after it floods through me, I realize I don’t feel well.

“We’re here,” calls Fiona. “We’re okay. Sort of.”

“He’s not,” I hear Ali mutter. I can see the dark shadow of him bent over by the body. Taking a pulse, presumably, though there’s none to take. How many times a minute does Jamie’s pulse not beat? Ben’s light explores the rest of the kitchen and finds the three of us. “Jesus Christ,” he says. I can’t see his face behind the circle of light, but he sounds like someone just punched him. “Are you hurt?”

“We think Ailsa’s broken her collarbone,” Fiona says. “But it’s not our blood.”

“What happened?”

“It’s . . . it’s a long story. The police are on their way. How come you’re here?”