Fiona ushers us into the always-dark TV room. She turns on the lights to reveal a ribbed maroon carpet, pale yellow walls and turquoise curtains, pulled closed. There are two yellow-upholstered armchairs and a long, thin walnut-veneer table covered in magazines. All the bright colours in the room are screaming, ‘Don’t look at death! Look at me!’

I sit down.

Gibbs turned away when I looked at him and tried to say hello a minute ago, but now, when he thinks I’m looking at Waterhouse, he’s watching me. I can feel his stare.

‘Can I bring anybody a drink?’ Fiona asks.

‘No, thanks.’ I need to know what the hell’s going on here. No milky drink is going to delay that by even a second.

There’s no protest from Waterhouse or Gibbs. Fiona withdraws, closing the door behind her.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ I blurt out. ‘Fiona said Faith Kendell’s not dead – is that true?’

‘Faith Kendell’s not the person we need to worry about,’ says Waterhouse.

‘Then who? Tell me.’

‘When we came here today, it was Faith we were primarily concerned with – on your tip, because you speculated about Billy maybe thinking the two of you were friends and giving Faith one of his white books for that reason.’

‘We asked the ward staff about the book – how it ended up on the board,’ Gibbs says.

I’m nodding so hard, it’s making my head throb. ‘And?’

‘It was found in Marion’s room. In her bed.’

‘In her … her bed?’ The connection between my brain and my words has stretched too thin. Every bed is narrow, I think to myself. Narrow, narrow, narrow.

‘One of the nurses found it a couple of days before Marion died, tucked underneath the mattress with one corner sticking out,’ says Waterhouse.

‘And no one thought to tell me or Drew? They find a weird thing like that in a patient’s bed and say nothing, just stick it up on the noticeboard?’

‘From what I can gather, they were busy, confused … they didn’t want to add to your or Drew’s distress, so they put it up on the board because it looked vaguely as if it might belong there. They had no reason to think it was connected to anything untoward.’

‘So the book wasn’t meant for Faith,’ I say, trying to make my brain work faster. It was …’ I stand up and try to walk, but there’s a wall everywhere I look. ‘But that’s not right, is it? I mean, Marion’s not my best friend. I didn’t even like her! And Billy didn’t shoot her. She died of cancer.’

‘You’ll feel better if you sit down and try to stay calm,’ Waterhouse tells me.

‘No.’

‘Yes. Do it.’

I sit.