The blood drained from Tara’s face. She didn’t want this conversation, and Olivia was right to presume she wouldn’t have agreed to meet her. ‘Nick was—’ She paused and failed again to fill her lungs. ‘He was trying to extort money from Faith. He attacked her and she defended herself.’

‘I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it,’ Olivia said, reaching for her glass. Without looking up, she asked, ‘Was it my fault? Was she angry because of the things I told you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tara said, her voice hoarse as if her throat refused to be complicit with the lie.

‘But you did tell her?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Olivia replied, repeating what she had said in her tweet. ‘I shouldn’t have said the things I said. I—’ She couldn’t go on and attempted to sip her water. It slopped in her hand as the first sob escaped.

Josh set the glass down for her, then squeezed her hand. ‘We were expecting your other friend to be here,’ he said. ‘We saw the photo of the support group and recognised you both.’

‘April is one of our members, but Justine and I run the group,’ Tara replied. ‘Although I should add, Justine wasn’t aware that I’d gone to the fundraiser.’

‘Why did you go?’ Josh asked.

‘Faith is a close friend of mine and I was worried that the attachment she was forming with Nick had happened too quickly. We – I was also concerned that the information Nick had disclosed to the group had been lacking.’

‘I was the one who initially accepted Nick into the group,’ Justine offered. ‘He told me that he and Erin hadn’t been married, but there was no suggestion of an illicit affair.’ She blushed before adding quickly, ‘Not that there was an affair. That was another lie Nick told us after we discovered Erin was married to someone else – you. And I’m so sorry that particular piece of misinformation has been leaked.’

‘That’s not why we’re here,’ Olivia said. She took a shuddering breath and pulled back her shoulders. ‘Maybe Nick wasn’t perfect but neither was he the monster being described in the papers. I was wrong to say what I did about him that night. I was drunk. My brother was a good man. A weak man, yes, but he had a good heart. Whatever happened in that house, I don’t believe he’d attack a woman.’

‘Faith has a knife wound to her neck,’ Tara said, comfortable with some facts at least.

‘What’s she like?’ Olivia asked. ‘Could she have been hysterical?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Tara.

Josh leant forward. ‘What we’re struggling to understand is why Nick would turn to violence. What was he like in the group? Did he show his anger there? Was it encouraged?’