More than that: no shake in their voices, no shadow sliding under their faces, when they talked about the moment that had robbed Chris Harper’s life away. They could’ve been talking about cheating on an exam. Till then, one snip of me had wondered if they were making up the Rebecca story to steer me away from one of them, but no. None of these had ever touched murder.

I said, ‘That’s great. Thanks a million for telling me.’ Smiled at them all.

‘I wasn’t about to say it in front of Detective Bitchface,’ Gemma said. ‘I’d probably be in jail right now. You’re not going to get me in trouble, right? Because like I said—’

‘No trouble. I might ask you to give me a statement at some stage, if I really need one – no, hang on, it won’t get you in hassle. You can just say you went into the shed to get out of the rain, which is true, right? You won’t need to explain why you were outside to start with. Yeah?’

Gemma didn’t look convinced. Joanne didn’t care about her. Leaning closer, fizzing with excitement: ‘So you think Rebecca did it. Right? That’s what you think.’

I said, ‘I think I’d like to know what Rebecca was doing in there. That’s all.’

Knelt up, dusted dirt and grass off my trousers. Kept it casual, but I was rattling with it, how badly I wanted to shoot up off that grass and leg it. I could have Rebecca. I could grope my way through streaks of light and whirling moths till I found her and Julia and Selena, dark eyes watching for me out of the dark under cypresses. I could ring the locals for a marked car and a social worker and have Rebecca in an interview room before Conway let go her pit-bull grab on Holly. If I worked it just right and kept my phone off, I could have a confession on O’Kelly’s desk before Conway tracked me down. By morning I could be the hotshot who, in twelve hours, had solved the big one that had stumped Conway for a year.

Joanne said, ‘Stay and talk with us. We’ll have to go inside soon anyway; you can go talk to boring Rebecca then.’

‘Yeah,’ Orla said. ‘We’re way more interesting than her.’

For a second I thought – the stupid swelled head on me – they might still be scared, want the big strong man to protect them. But they were comfy as cats on the grass. All the fear had run right out of them, once they were the powerful ones taking me where they wanted me, to whisper their saved-up secret in my ear.

I said, smiling, ‘I’d say you are, all right. But I’d better get this sorted out.’