She’s not sure why they haven’t arrested Millie, to be honest, given the wealth of evidence they’ve amassed against her. She’s told them Felix has never had a nosebleed, and certainly not when Millie Downton was with them: the woman had Felix’s blood on her shoes and clothes, and she left fingerprints in his blood on the underside of the stair bannister. How can that not be sinister? It’s incredibly unfortunate Stacey had the house professionally cleaned the same week Felix disappeared, as she does twice a year (the cleaners are on an automatic contract: the police checked into that). The forensic team’s UV lights didn’t pick up any traces of blood in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house, nothing to indicate foul play other than those incriminating fingerprints; but then they wouldn’t after the cleaners had been through with their bleach.

She rinses the shampoo from her hair, and gently massages conditioner into her scalp. The worst thing is, she can see how Millie ended up thinking this way. She should never have confided in her – a woman she scarcely knew! – about the problems she and Felix were having. But there’s no denying things had escalated in the bedroom to a point where she wasn’t comfortable, and she needed to tell someone.

The level of violence between them: it might be consensual, but even she could see it wasn’t healthy.

Felix clearly felt the same way: he’d gone behind her back and engaged a divorce lawyer. Who knows what he’d told Tom about the state of their marriage, but it probably wasn’t very complimentary. There are two sides to every story, after all. She doubted he’d painted her in the most flattering light. And if Tom had passed details of their marital troubles on to his wife – well, it would’ve just fed into Millie’s misguided conviction that Stacey needed rescuing.

And then there’s Harper Conway. Stacey hasn’t trusted the young woman since the first day she met her, she thinks, soaping her legs. Harper is publicity-hungry and a lot savvier than she lets on. And she’s got more reason than most to carry a grudge against Felix, given he stole all her money. Who knows what poison she’s been dripping into Millie’s ear? As she told the two detectives, she knows it sounds completely crazy, but what if Harper took advantage of Millie’s obsession with Stacey and somehow manipulated her into … well, into hurting Felix?

They didn’t take her seriously – she’s aware how paranoid she sounds – but she didn’t really expect them to. It’s like she’s trapped in a complex, elaborate maze of smoke and mirrors designed to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty seem innocent: nothing is as it seems. No one is to be trusted.