‘I was out walking on the hill with the spyglass you gave me. I saw the Party House and more police vehicles arriving. You said there’d been a bit of trouble. That looked like big trouble. So I came for a look.’

He heard himself evading the truth, which seemed to have become a habit of late. ‘The hot tub was attacked and destroyed. The owners wanted the damage examined properly.’

‘And that’s why all those police officers are there? For damage to a hot tub?’

Greg reminded himself that it would be all round the village like wildfire soon. Plus it would no doubt reach the national news. So why not tell her?

‘They found something under the hot tub.’

‘What did they find?’ she demanded.

He hesitated, hating having to say it. ‘Possible human remains.’ There was no possible about it.

Joanne looked stunned. ‘They found a body below the hot tub?’

He nodded, thinking how much worse ‘a body’ sounded than ‘human remains’.

‘How long has it been there?’

Greg shook his head, although he was pretty sure of the answer.

‘Could it be that girl who disappeared?’

‘How do you know about that?’ he said sharply.

‘I did some research on Blackrig after you told me about the virus deaths and the Party House. The story came up.’

Of course it would. He shouldn’t be surprised. Nor should he be surprised that she’d done her homework. He wondered exactly when she’d checked out Blackrig. Before she came here? Or only after he’d told her about the virus deaths?

Or even before she’d met him?

He was suddenly reminded of how she’d greeted him as he’d entered that London dining room. How he’d had the notion that she hadn’t been there by chance.

Greg forced himself to relax. Joanne wasn’t a part of any of this. And it wasn’t her fault she’d seen the police presence.

He apologized for his sharpness. ‘The village is mad that there are folk in the Party House again. I suspect someone came here to destroy the hot tub, hoping it would mean the visitors wouldn’t come . . .’ He tailed off.

‘Did they see the remains?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, adding another lie to the increasing list.

‘So who spotted what had happened?’

‘Colin saw the damage when he checked the place this morning. He was freaked because the visitors were due to arrive.’

‘And the body?’

‘Harry was the one to spot the remains.’

‘My God.’ She shook her head. ‘That poor girl.’

As she studied him, he realized she was looking for his reaction to such a grisly discovery. His main feeling being fear, he’d been doing his best to stifle it.

When he could produce nothing of note, she said, ‘If this is a bad time for you, I could go back to London?’