“So much worse,” Carrie agreed. “I mean, self-defense is obviously the only time it’s actually okay to kill someone. No one can blame you if you’re just protecting yourself.” Carrie sat back in her chair. She put a bit of warmth in her voice. “Did you read about that woman who killed her boyfriend in California? It was in the papers again last week. They arrested her and charged her, but she got this rockstar lawyer, and he was just brilliant at making everyone understand what she had been through. And she was acquitted. She even got a book deal, and there’s talk of a movie next. But anyway. That’s self-defense. Killing someone accidently, you can still get in a bit of trouble for, but it isn’t too bad. And after that comes a spontaneous killing, and then the bad one, an actual planned-out murder.”

Evelyn started on the last finger of her left hand. This time, the line smudged. “Damn it,” she said. She reached for the nail polish remover, wiped away her mistake, and started again.

“So, anyway with all of that, my boss has the whole team out again, searching along the canal banks, looking for anything we might have missed. They’re interviewing everyone at the bar as well. Looking for anyone who might have seen you and Laura together.”

“If the whole team is out there, why aren’t you out there with them?”

Carrie made herself hesitate. She looked down. “Well, I think I should be,” she said. “But, you know, maybe I’m just a little on the young side. I have to prove myself a bit more first.”

“They’ve left you out?” Evelyn said. She looked . . . interested. Almost pleased at the idea.

“Not all the time. Just a bit on this case. I think it’s because . . .”

“Because of what?”

“Well, maybe because I can see your side of this, that’s all. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, and we’re the same age. They think I’m too sympathetic. But I think I can see things that they can’t. I mean, men just don’t understand the way women can be sometimes.”

That earned her another eye flick.

“Sorry, what are you talking about?”

“With Laura, I mean. People think she was perfect, just because she’s dead. But that doesn’t mean that she was a good person. You know what I’m saying. I mean, if she was jealous and possessive and violent with Robert, what was she like with everyone else?”

The slightest of hesitations, but Evelyn couldn’t quite resist. “Oh, she was far from perfect.”

“Right,” said Carrie. “But my boss went back to the bar. He spoke to the barman and tracked down a few more witnesses that we missed the first time around. And the lads aren’t telling me everything, but . . . Listen, I really shouldn’t be telling you this. But I overheard enough, and now they seem to think that you might have done it. Killed her, I mean. Niall says they’ve found a blond hair or something that they’re testing—don’t ask me, I don’t really understand that forensic stuff—but they’ve all got a bee in their bonnet about it.”