‘I pretend I have no idea what happened to Felix,’ I tell her, ‘you pretend you didn’t set me up to take the fall for his murder, I threaten you, you tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, blah, blah, blah. I’d expect those kind of games from someone like Harper Conway, but I thought you were smarter than that.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘Ahh. Better.’

‘You must want something, or you wouldn’t be here.’

I smile wolfishly. ‘Psychopaths don’t need a reason to be psychopaths. I assume you know the fable about the scorpion and the frog?’

‘Remind me.’

‘A scorpion wants to cross a river but he can’t swim, so he asks a frog to carry him across.’ My tone is relaxed, but I don’t take my eyes off Stacey’s hands for a second. ‘The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises he won’t, because they’d both drown if he stung the frog in the middle of the river. So the frog agrees to carry the scorpion, and he climbs onto its back. And then halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why he stung him, knowing they’d both die, to which the scorpion replies, “It’s in my nature”.’

‘Are you the scorpion or the frog in this fable?’ Stacey asks.

‘You tell me,’ I say.

‘I liked you,’ Stacey says. ‘I really liked you.’

‘I liked you too,’ I say. ‘Why did you set me up?’

She rolls her shoulders and stretches her long white neck from side to side. ‘Hypothetically speaking? Well, if I wanted to get rid of my husband, I’d be the first person the police would suspect. So I’d need a someone to distract them, wouldn’t I? Someone to provide reasonable doubt.’ Her lips curve. ‘Someone who had a motive to want Felix dead. And you really didn’t like my husband, did you?’

‘I assume that was your intention.’

‘You saw what you wanted to see.’

‘And Harper? Where does she fit in? Why did you try to kill her?’

‘Why would I try to kill her? What are you talking about?’

‘She saw you behind the wheel of the car that hit her.’

‘She’s lying,’ Stacey says.

‘Of course she is,’ I say. ‘But not necessarily about this.’

‘I think about you all the time,’ Stacey says unexpectedly. ‘I think about your hair, and the clothes you wear, and how you look when you’re sleeping. I wonder if you masturbate, and who you think about when you do.’ She leans forward, her breasts swelling against the edge of the bath towel. ‘I wonder what it must be like to slice into someone and watch their blood flow over your fingers and to hold their life in your hands. Literally in your hands.’