He looked as though the question had stirred painful memories. ‘I can’t explain. It was just bad timing. I’m sorry if I hurt you. Why are you here? You’re not with the police any more, are you?’

Harri’s hackles rose. He obviously knew about her dismissal from the force. He’d been keeping tabs on her, but still hadn’t called. ‘No. I’m not. Why do you ask?’

‘Isn’t that normally who knocks on doors, raking through people’s lives?’ Ben replied.

If it was meant to be a scathing remark, it fell wide of its target because he delivered it with an innocent tone and an uncomprehending smile. Was he mentally unwell? He was still handsome, but the air of trauma was impossible to ignore. What had happened to the confident man she’d fallen for? This was a damaged soul in need of repair.

Much like you, Harri caught herself thinking. Maybe you could find solace with each other?

It was a testament to her strength of feeling that she was still drawn to him after how he’d treated her. This man had rejected her in the coldest possible way. He’d ended their relationship, dropped her calls, and ignored all her messages. Was it a connection she wanted? Or absolution for failure? Before she’d died, Harri’s mother had called her a collector of broken toys. She was drawn to damaged people and always tried to make things better for them. She was a helper, a saviour. That’s why she’d joined the police force. She’d wanted to save people, help the innocent, punish the guilty. Maybe the attraction she felt wasn’t an expression of her vulnerability, but instead a manifestation of her habit of trying to heal others. Did she like Ben even more now she knew he was broken?

‘Maybe if we’d met under different circumstances, we could have made each other happy,’ Ben said. ‘But the timing was wrong. And now this.’

‘What do you mean “this”?’ she asked.

‘You’re digging into the deaths of my friends. I don’t think it’s going to give us much of a future.’

‘Why?’ Harri asked. Was he admitting there was something for her to investigate?

‘I wish we’d met in different circumstances.’

‘Different how?’

Did he still feel something for her?

‘If none of this had happened,’ he replied. ‘If we’d met in another world, I think we might have been good together, don’t you?’

Ben looked at her earnestly. Why had he said that? Was he trying to mess with her emotions? Throw her off balance? Or did he still have feelings for her?

She was in uncharted territory. She’d never had to interview someone she knew personally, but she took her lead from Ben’s strange and chilly reception, and used a cool no-nonsense tone she’d perfected on hundreds of other suspects.

Is that what he is now? Is he a suspect?

‘I didn’t come here to talk about us. I want to ask you about Elizabeth Asha,’ Harri said.

‘No one called her Elizabeth. She was Beth.’