‘I don’t know if you’ve eaten already, but I’ve got some chicken soup,’ she offers, going to the pan simmering on the hob. ‘Do you want some?’

Jess grins. ‘I hardly ate my dinner. I’d love some. Thank you.’

She sits at the kitchen table while Margot dishes out soup for them both, and rummages in the bread bin. There’s a loaf Adam brought home a few days ago from the farm shop. A bit stale but it will be okay with soup. Margot hasn’t had the chance to go shopping since Heather’s been in hospital.

She sits opposite Jess, placing a plate of the stale bread between them. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘I should be asking you that,’ says Jess, her brown eyes full of concern. ‘How’s Heather?’

Margot swallows some soup. It’s too hot and scalds her mouth. ‘The same. I worry, sometimes, that she’ll be in a coma for years. The doctors assure me that’s rare. But they also say with head injuries everybody is different.’

Jess nods, then eats a few spoonfuls before adding, ‘And how’s Adam coping?’

Margot tears off a piece of bread and sinks it into the soup. She hasn’t got much appetite. She’s eating, sleeping, washing, feeding the horses, cleaning mechanically, like a robot. ‘Adam is … struggling, I think. He’s never been the most communicative of men, but now it’s like he’s gone into himself.’ He’d be furious if he knew she had Jess here.

‘I can understand that,’ she says. ‘And the fingerprints. The police think someone else held the gun that morning? Not just Heather?’

Margot hesitates, suddenly unsure if this was a good idea. She knows she’s agreed to an exclusive but this information is so new, so precious, that she feels she wants to nourish and protect it, like a seedling, giving it time to grow. But, on the other hand, if those fingerprints put doubt on the fact that Heather carried out the horrific shootings, well, she’d want everyone to know it.

Jess must notice her conflicting emotions because she sits back in her chair, putting the spoon down. ‘I’m here tonight as a friend. Not as a journalist,’ she says.

Can Margot believe her? She studies her face. She’s hardly changed, not really. Aged, of course, but underneath the new fine lines and the make-up and the heavy fringe she sees the same Jess who practically lived with them for two years. She was like a member of the family for a time.

‘In that case let me open a bottle of wine. I could do with a drink,’ says Margot, getting up and going over to the wine rack. She picks a Chablis and pours them both a glass. ‘I just wish I knew exactly what happened that morning,’ she says, passing a glass to Jess. ‘If only Heather had an alibi.’