‘Grace,’ Nick breathes, before the room shrinks to a tiny dot and is finally extinguished in the blink of an eye.

GRACE

Tuesday, 8 May 2018

HARRIET GAYLE IS A COOL BLONDE, HER HAIR TIED tightly back, a pair of understated silver knots in her earlobes. She’s wearing a trouser suit with heels. She is quite perfect, from her plucked eyebrows to her exquisitely painted fingernails. She is also tough, no nonsense. Cassie gave me her number. She’s an old friend of Evan’s. After a shaky start, I ended up telling her everything about the various strands of our lives that knitted together at the point where Nick disappeared. I admitted I had been suspicious about Anna and Nick and had gone out searching for him, my heart racing, half expecting to see them together. I told her I’d stood at the corner of Anna’s street, waiting for him to come out of her house. All the things I should have confessed to Marsh. No WPC Grant this time.

She advises me to deny watching the house, because it only complicates things. I have denied it, but Marsh evidently doesn’t believe me and thinks it’s the key to unlocking what happened.

‘Have you any idea why Anna Foreman would have walked across the Common on her own in the dark?’ Marsh asks.

‘None at all. It’s not something any of us would do.’

‘Then she must have been meeting someone. Was it you, Grace?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’

He steeples his fingers and looks at me over them. ‘You had the opportunity, with Lottie not being at home. We all know you’re prone to flashes of violent temper. Stop lying, Grace, and tell me what really happened.’

Harriet turns to me. ‘You don’t have to answer that.’

‘No comment,’ I say.

‘You have no evidence that my client has either committed or colluded in a crime,’ she tells Marsh. ‘No evidence either that Nick didn’t kill himself. You might have had a motive if Nick and Grace had been married, but as it is, you have nothing.’

He leans back, stretches out a crick in his neck. ‘I would call jealousy a motive, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’m not like that,’ I protest, even though I know it’s not entirely true. ‘I don’t get jealous.’

Harriet puts a hand on my wrist and applies gentle pressure. I take the hint and clamp my mouth shut.

‘What about your attack on Douglas Parr? That was provoked by jealousy, wasn’t it?’

‘That was years ago. Douglas and I have a good relationship these days.’

‘Are you still as volatile?’

‘No.’

‘That’s not what Cora says.’

‘That woman hates me.’

‘You pushed her over,’ Marsh says.

‘I didn’t push her. She tripped over the dog. She told me that they wanted me out of the house, and I admit I lost it, but I didn’t physically attack her.’