Your name? Your address? Your age? Your next of kin? Your relation to Cory Byrne? To Diana Byrne? When did you last see Mr. Byrne? Talk to him? What was his mood? And what about all the paintings? And can you talk us through events, starting with last night? Starting with yesterday morning? Starting as far back as you like . . .

They couldn’t decide how to label me, that was the problem. Witness? Victim? Collaborator? Perpetrator? It was difficult to be much help when I wasn’t sure myself. Also, I felt very tired. I kept expecting them to confront me about the papers in the bath.

“Did Mr. Byrne ever hurt you?”

“He hurt my sister.” It was the most definite thing I’d said all morning. “He murdered her and made us think it was suicide.”

There was a moment’s pause, and the questions began afresh.

Your sister’s name? And the date of her death? And the circumstances . . . ?

I touched my forehead where it ached, and someone said, “She’s dead on her feet.” I thought for a moment he meant Stella, and I almost contradicted him because of course Stella didn’t die on her feet; she died in flight.

“Those bits of paper in the bath . . .” I said.

“Go and sit in the fresh air,” the voice went on kindly. “Your friend can go with you, and we’ll bring some coffee over.”

Tom and I sat on the steps at the top of the garden. My teeth were chattering, so Tom gave me his coat and we drank our sugary coffees.

“Is he definitely dead?”

Tom was slow to reply, but at last he said, “Yes.”

“Are you hesitating because you’re not sure? Or because you’re worried I can’t bear it?”

Was that fear in Tom’s expression? If so, I hoped it was because of what had happened—because of Cory in the bath—and not because he’d grown afraid of me.

“Freya, it’s . . . He’s definitely dead.”

I nodded, staring across the lawn to the patch of flattened grass where the wedding canopy used to stand. Thunder and lightning had been flaring when I came to the house in August; it ought to be flaring this morning as well. What a banal day for Cory Byrne to die, with the light so milky and flat. I rested my chin on the rim of the cup, and the steam warmed my face.

“You drove for hours, all the way from London,” I observed, “just because our phones got disconnected.”

Tom shrugged.

“Something was obviously wrong,” he said. “I couldn’t abandon you.”