She didn’t have to tell him that while they logged everything, there was little they could do. He would already know that.

‘Can I?’ He was holding up her phone and she saw he had the call button up.

She shrugged, watched him put the phone on loudspeaker. It went straight to voicemail. No surprise there. He handed her the phone back.

‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Hannah?’

He sounded more frustrated than annoyed, which didn’t help her bubble of guilt.

Why hadn’t she told him? Lack of trust over Jill. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he had already know. Her name was written at the top of his notes and he hadn’t seemed surprised at the news she was dead.

He didn’t know. When you told him, he wanted to know what had happened.

She recalled his words: Tell me what you know.

Actually, that wasn’t the same thing at all. He hadn’t asked her to tell him what had happened. He had simply wanted to know what Hannah knew.

Everything inside her went cold. ‘Did you already know Jill was dead?’

He had a good poker face because he didn’t flinch. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Answer the question, Liam.’

For a moment, they stared at each other.

‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Your notes. Why do you have her name written down on the top page?’

She could see the disappointment on his face before he spoke and guilt stabbed at her.

‘You were going through my research?’

‘No! I wasn’t. I would never snoop. But it was sitting on the table when I set it. It was impossible not to see.’

Liam didn’t say anything. Instead he got up, retrieving the notes from the bookshelf where he had put them. He slammed them down on the table in front of her.

‘You want to see what I’m working on, Hannah? Then go ahead and look. You know what I am writing a book about and, like it or not, you, Jill, Rosie and the rest of your friends are a part of it. Yes, Jill’s name is there. You’re all mentioned. So is Scott Copeland,’ he told her, mentioning the name of Eileen Wickham’s first victim. The boy from before. ‘If not on the first page, then certainly later on. Knock yourself out. It’s all there.’

He was angry with her and both annoyance and embarrassment heated her face. She could now see that Rosie’s name was also mentioned. Miles’s too.

‘I don’t want to look at your notes.’ She shoved them towards him, pushing back her chair and getting to her feet. The food she had been enjoying now sitting uncomfortably in her stomach. ‘Thank you for dinner, but I think I should go.’