My heart sank a little. ‘So we’ll just both stay here?’

I’d heard of couples in that situation, unable to separate for money reasons, and it sounded awful. Maybe I could move out, find a flat in town – it felt overwhelming even thinking about it.

‘We will. But not in the way you think.’

‘What?’ Suddenly, I realised I had to stand up. I was far too vulnerable on the sofa and—

Too late. His fist came swinging towards me, and before I could fully marvel at what was happening, that it was Nick doing this to me, I was on the floor.

PART FOUR

PART FOUR

Alison

Alison

FEBRUARY – TWO MONTHS LATER

Alison had never been so pleased to get inside the police station. She resolved that, when she got home that night, she was going on lastminute.com to find some winter sun. Images rose in her mind – cocktails with umbrellas, warm sand under her toes, the smell of sun cream . . .

‘Pasty?’ His mouth full of crumbs, Tom was approaching her desk, holding out a paper bag. He’d made her let him out at the Greggs in Sevenoaks.

‘Yuck.’ Alison eyed the bag, the grease seeping through it. ‘What is it?’

‘Cheese slice. I know you worry about the poor little animals.’

‘Go on then.’ Shovelling solid food into her stomach helped warm up the frozen core of her. She talked as she chewed. ‘It’s weird about those cottage people.’

‘The Wicked Witch?’ Tom’s dark eyebrows went up. There was a fleck of pastry in one.

‘No.’ She glared at him. ‘The posh ones who seem to have disappeared. Two deaths near the place in the last few months, and hardly anyone ever goes there? I mean, it’s the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?’

Tom swallowed a lump of sausage roll. ‘You reckon something fishy’s going on?’

‘You don’t think?’

‘I dunno. What are the odds?’

As police officers, they were world-weary with members of the public watching crime dramas on TV then ringing in with a vast conspiracy they’d spotted to steal all the recycling bins in their street, or insisting their neighbour was part of an international paedophile ring, rather than, say, a music teacher. All the same, Alison had an itch between her shoulder blades. A little out-of-the-way place like that should not have been at the nexus of several suspicious deaths in such a short space of time. Something was wrong.

Tom sighed. ‘Alright then. Let’s go to the guv’nor.’ He jerked his thumb to the office of their DCI, Claire Fisher, a powerhouse in tailoring. ‘It’s your neck on the line if it’s all in your head, though, mate.’

‘Alright.’ Alison wiped her hands clean. She wondered if she should tell him about the pastry crumb, and decided against it.

Eleanor

Eleanor

DECEMBER

Police called to suspicious death.