Stacey has freely admitted she and Felix were having marital problems – no point lying about it – but as she told the two detectives, they were both still hoping they could work it out. They have a child together, after all. She’d never want any harm to come to Felix, of course, but she’s sounded off about him now and then to her girlfriends, of course she has, I’d be better off without him, that sort of thing, it’s what women say when they’ve had a row, isn’t it, it doesn’t mean she didn’t love him. But now she’s dreadfully afraid Millie might have misconstrued what she said and taken matters into her own hands and done something terrible. Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? Stacey said. (Then she had to explain to DCI Hollander and DS Mehdi it was a quote attributed to King Henry II in 1170 when he sounded off about his aggravating Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, which prompted four knights to travel to Canterbury where they killed Becket in his own cathedral, thinking they were doing the King a favour.) Maybe I said something that made Millie think I wanted something bad to happen to Felix, she told the detectives. I know she had a bit of a crush on me, but I never thought it’d go this far.

The thing is, Stacey said, Millie has a history of domestic abuse, and she can’t help wondering now if she triggered the other woman. Stacey flushed scarlet as she explained she and Felix enjoyed an enthusiastic and vigorous sex life; a bit too vigorous, sometimes. There were … well, there were bruises. Sometimes. A black eye when she fell off the bed and couldn’t stop her fall, because her hands were … God, this was so embarrassing … well, tied together. DCI Hollander got a bit pink around the ears himself at that point.

She turns her face up into the hot spray and closes her eyes as the water sluices over her breasts and shoulders. She doesn’t know what was going on in Millie’s head, what deluded narrative she’s been telling herself, but as she told the two detectives earlier, she feels responsible for not picking up on it before. She was the one who invited Millie to her tennis club, to her home. If something she said or did has led Millie to hurt Felix—

The police officers rushed to assure her it wasn’t her fault, but, as she told them, if anything’s happened to Felix, she’ll never forgive herself.