‘I knew, you see,’ Juliette went on. ‘I knew he never really cared about me, or my mum. We weren’t real family to him at all, because our blood wasn’t the same as his. ‘Not Davenport blood,’ that’s what he said. I heard them arguing, about whether or not to pay for Mum’s rehab this time – to give her the help she needed. He had all this!’ She threw her arms wide, encompassing the study, Letty’s legacy, the whole of Aldermere. ‘And he couldn’t give any of it up to help someone who needed it – but he’d give it away to a total stranger. To some girl who was lucky enough to have the right blood. That’s why Grandma had to steal the stupid magnifying glass. To pay for my mother’s rehab, because he wouldn’t.’

Maybe she could understand, a little bit, Posy thought. ‘What happened next?’

DCI Larch gave her an approving look. They’d have a full confession, soon enough. Now Juliette had started talking, she didn’t seem to want to stop.

Then it would be up to his team to find the hard evidence to back it up in court.

‘I cornered Clementine in the stables. After the fake murder mystery thing. But she kept trying to ignore me, too, saying she had somewhere else to be. She wouldn’t listen. So I made her stop. I made her listen.’

‘You pushed her and she hit her head, right?’ Caro said. ‘You made the fiction real.’

‘I did! I—’ Juliette faltered, the fight fleeing her body as she relaxed into Larch’s hold. ‘I did. She fell back and hit it on the edge of one of the metal rails. And then … she didn’t move anymore.’

‘So you put on her clothes and put her in the boot of your granddad’s car, like we thought, didn’t you?’ Posy suggested. ‘You dumped the body in the reeds, then drove the car to the station, so you could text Hugh from Clementine’s phone the next morning, and tell him to collect it.’

Juliette nodded, and any uncertainty or regret that had coloured her expression faded, replaced by a slow, pleased smile. ‘And not one of you noticed a thing. I even waved to you, and you didn’t know. I’d rewritten the whole story, and you had no idea.’

‘I bet that felt good.’ Rosalind took a step closer to Juliette. ‘And it was certainly very clever.’

In a diabolical way, Posy supposed. But it was the right thing to say. This girl, this child, so starved of loving kindness in this house, drank it up.

‘I knew people would ask questions though, so I stole Granddad’s phone and made a copy of the message from Clementine. It was so easy to fake up that voicemail for Marcus.’ She gazed around at the assembled company. ‘Well, easy for me, anyway.’