‘Then she called Hugh and asked to borrow a car to get to the station for a family emergency, and drove one of the vintage ones out the front gates,’ Posy finished. ‘And that was the last anyone saw of her.’

‘Except the murderer.’ Caro frowned. ‘And Felicity, who saw her headed to the Gate House that afternoon.’

It wasn’t until they were approaching the stables that they spotted the police presence around the Boat House. They’d cordoned off a large area either side of the river, all the way from the Gate House down to the Boat House, which was now surrounded by police crime-scene tape.

‘Oh God. Do you think …? Caro trailed off.

‘What?’ Posy asked. ‘Is there another body?’

Rosalind shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But if I had to guess … Larch said they were looking for the murder weapon. There was no sign of it, or a struggle, at the Gate House, so she probably wasn’t killed there.’ They bypassed the stables, and carried on down the path.

Posy’s eyes were huge and round as she stared at the Boat House. ‘So she ditched the car after she drove out, then walked back around to the river path where she met her murderer?’

The same path they’d walked the night before.

‘There’s a private road – more of a track – on the other side of the bend in the river, over a stone bridge,’ Rosalind remembered. ‘She could have driven around to there, then crossed the footbridge to meet someone at the Boat House.’

‘That’s it, then,’ Caro said. ‘She pretended to leave, but drove up the track to the other side of the river, hidden by the alder trees. She called Marcus and left that voicemail about a family emergency. Then she met someone at the Boat House, they argued, and someone killed her.’

‘They must have pushed the body into the river, to sink in the reeds.’ Rosalind’s mouth felt dry, like she was breathing in ashes. ‘It could have stayed there for days. Months. Longer. Except …’

‘It rained that night,’ Posy finished, and suddenly Rosalind could feel the water droplets hitting her skin as Clementine’s dead eyes stared up at her. ‘The storm must have dislodged the body. Sent it down river towards the Gate House.’

‘What about the clothes?’ Caro asked. ‘The murderer must have stripped her naked, taken her phone, and then hidden her clothes at the Gate House. No, wait. Felicity said she saw Clementine heading to the Gate House after she left. So she went there and got changed? When? And why? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.’

‘Not the only part,’ Posy said. ‘Why not meet us when she’d arranged to at the folly? There was plenty of time for her to do that before she left Aldermere.’

‘Still so many questions.’ Rosalind looked away, towards the folly, and saw a flash of movement.