Libby lowered her eyes and stared at James. As she opened her mouth to speak Claire grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

‘Don’t listen to him, Libby,’ she said, panic in her voice. ‘He’ll make you say something that you’ll regret.’

But Libby snatched her hand away and shook her head. ‘No, Claire. He’s right. It’s not fair on Rachel to carry on pretending that she got it wrong when she didn’t.’

‘But you’re confused,’ Claire said. ‘You shouldn’t do—’

Libby cut Claire off before she could finish her sentence.

‘The truth is that Ethan and I are seeing each other, Inspector, and we have been for about five months,’ she said. ‘And we were kissing when Rachel saw us behind the bush, so I had to tell her what was really going on. My “sordid secret” as she put it. And after I did, she blew a fuse and stormed off.’

It was Abbott who responded, no doubt because she was taken aback by the confession.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘If you were having an affair with Ethan, why marry Mr Murphy? Why not end things?’

Libby looked at her and raised her brow. ‘I was going to do exactly that just over three months ago when Ethan and I took the decision to stop with the affair and make our relationship permanent. We’d never really fallen out of love, you see. But then Greg’s father died so I stayed with him.’

Abbott leaned forward, frowning. ‘Are you saying that you didn’t leave Mr Murphy because you felt sorry for him?’

Libby wiped a tear from her cheek and turned to Claire.

‘Are you going to tell them, or shall I?’ she said.

By now sweat was beading above Claire’s upper lip and veins were bulging out of her neck.

‘It was me who persuaded her to remain in the relationship and to go ahead with the wedding,’ she said. ‘I knew it’d be the best way for her and Ethan to have a great future together.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

The air in the room was suddenly oscillating with tension. Libby began weeping and Ethan moved to stand behind her so that he could place his hands on her shoulders.

Claire’s breathing was getting louder and faster and all the colour left her cheeks.

James, on the other hand, felt pleased with himself, and a fizz of excitement ran through him.

He gave them all a few moments to process what had happened before asking Claire to elaborate on her revelation.

She cleared her throat, licked her lips, said, ‘Libby made a terrible mistake entering into a relationship with Greg Murphy. I warned her against it because I knew that he was a bullying control freak, just like his father. And before long she discovered that I was right. He wasn’t the man for her and her thoughts turned to ending it with him.’

Libby wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and took a deep, audible breath.