I’m still trying to process all this when I hear a door slam. I glance at Margot, who’s looking towards the hallway. I follow her gaze. Adam is leaning against the door jamb, even surlier than before, and I’m glad that Jack has accompanied me. But he barely acknowledges us. His face, under all that facial hair, is deathly white.

Margot stands up. A woman who’s accustomed to hearing bad news, she senses straight away that something’s wrong. ‘What? What is it?’ she says, her eyes darting about frantically, searching his face for clues, I imagine. ‘Is it Heather?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. No. I’ve had a call. From the police. They’ve found …’ He turns to us. ‘This is off the bloody record, all right?’

I nod, although Jack’s face is impassive.

‘They’ve found what?’ asks Margot, her voice rising.

‘Another set of fingerprints on the gun.’

Chapter 21

21

Margot

The air smells stale in the police station and Margot’s sure somebody has recently been eating egg sandwiches. She sits in the waiting room, her bag on her lap, trying not to make eye contact with some of the undesirables, her gaze trained on the posters with local helplines stuck to the wall opposite. A youth in the corner with a nose-ring has already bared his teeth at her. He’s waiting with an extremely skinny young woman, who, she’s sure, must be a drug addict, judging by her greasy hair and marked arms. It’s mid-March but the woman is in a vest top and sweatpants, although it’s unbearably hot in there. Margot can feel sweat breaking out on her back. She shouldn’t have put on her padded coat but she doesn’t want to take it off and draw attention to herself.

She shuffles in the uncomfortable plastic chair. How long is Adam going to take? The horrible blue walls are beginning to close in on her.

Adam was quiet in the car on the drive over while Margot had found it hard to suppress her excitement. Another set of fingerprints found. Which means it might not have been Heather who killed those people after all. She’s always known, deep down, that Heather wouldn’t do this. Not in cold blood. Keith was different. Keith was an unfortunate tragic accident.

Jess had been understanding when their interview had had to be cut short. She’d asked if she could go over to the caravan park and talk to Colin. Margot had agreed. She can’t imagine Colin would know anything, and she wanted to appease Jess after running out on her like that. Adam hadn’t looked particularly thrilled by the prospect of Jess and that nice boy, Jack, entering the caravan park, but he rarely looked thrilled about anything so Margot told herself not to dwell on it.