She looks tired: beneath her summer tan her face is drawn, and there are dark circles beneath her eyes. Despite her bravado, she’s anxious, too.

Goddamn it, I so don’t want to be right about Stacey Porter. The woman’s the first proper friend Millie’s ever made. But if my wife didn’t leave Felix’s phone in the airing cupboard, that leaves just one rational explanation: Stacey is the only person other than Millie who’s had access to both her husband’s phone and our house.

‘It seems odd Stacey wouldn’t remember Felix’s nosebleed,’ I say neutrally. ‘You’d have thought something like that would stick in her mind.’

Millie stares into her wine glass. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her for two days,’ she says.

I know how much that admission just cost her. Which means Millie’s blind spot when it comes to Stacey isn’t quite as blind as it used to be.

‘Is it possible,’ I venture, ‘that Stacey could have left Felix’s phone here?’

‘Why would she have his phone with her?’ Millie says. ‘And even if she did, how did it end up in our airing cupboard?’

‘Because she put it there.’

Her head snaps up. ‘Explain.’

‘When a husband or wife disappears, the first person the police look at is the spouse,’ I say. ‘If I had a husband I wanted to get rid of, I’d be looking for a fall guy.’

A beat passes.

Millie is many things, but she’s not a coward.

‘You think she’s setting me up,’ she says. ‘You think she manipulated me into killing her husband for her, and now she’s making sure I get blamed for it.’

That’s exactly what I think.

Millie puts her wine glass down and goes back into the hall. I watch as she puts her coat back on. ‘Where are you going?’ I ask.

‘To find out,’ Millie says.

chapter 48

millie

‘Where are you going?’ Tom asked.

I threw my school bag onto the passenger seat of my mother’s clapped-out black Fiat Uno. ‘To find out,’ I said.

‘Millie, you’re sixteen! You can’t drive!’

‘Of course I can drive,’ I said. ‘You mean I can’t drive legally.’

‘At least let me come with you—’

‘You’ve got an exam this morning, Tom. You can’t miss one of your GCSEs. I don’t have anything till Chem this afternoon and I’ll be back way before then. He’ll still be sleeping it off till lunchtime anyway. I’ll be fine.’

Tom held onto the sill of the open car window, as if he could physically prevent me driving away. ‘Millie, if your mother’s gone back to him, you won’t be able to stop her.’

‘She can’t,’ I said fiercely. ‘Not this time. I’m not going to let her.’