Marlow:You said Laura isn’t friends with anyone in the office any more.

Nate:That’s right, as far as I know. After Saskia, Laura found it hard to trust anyone for a while, and certainly at work she didn’t. I don’t know, she doesn’t talk about it, but I don’t think she has any real friends there. I don’t think she wants to get close to anyone.

Marlow:That’s also the impression I get, from talking to her and the other staff. But for me that leaves only one other option. If she’s not covering up for anyone for the fire, then …

Nate:Then what, Detective?

Marlow:Then did she do it herself?

Chapter Nineteen

Five weeks before the fire

It was only half an hour after Harry and Laura had left the office when Mia saw Janie Wood appear on the floor. She was immaculately dressed in tailored beige trousers, cropped to skim her ankles, and a long-sleeved white shirt, with an oversized bag weighing down her shoulder. Large sunglasses were pushed to the top of her head and she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine rather than the office lift.

Mia paused what she was doing, watching Janie out of the corner of her eye. Janie rarely came to the building and, whenever she did, she’d head straight for Harry’s office, speak briefly to her husband behind his closed door and then walk straight back out again. She obviously didn’t know he wasn’t here, and yet today Janie was lingering by the lift as if she was looking for someone else instead.

Janie Wood. The woman had made her life so public with her magazine appearances, and yet even in the articles Mia could see she didn’t seem comfortable with it. She didn’t have the look of someone who was happy that the cameras were snapping the inside of their house, with its glossy cream kitchen and plump oversized sofas, draped in throws.

Mia had pored over the pictures as she’d sat at the small round table in her mother’s kitchen, with its deep-red beetroot stain ingrained into the cheap wood, and thought how their lives were a million miles apart. And there Mia was, working like a dog with nothing to show for it, while Janie swanned around, spending her husband’s wealth, no doubt with his Black card cushioned in a designer purse somewhere in that bag of hers. The disparity was almost immeasurable.

Janie was walking towards her and Mia felt herself stiffen. They had spoken on a few occasions, but it was always stilted and clumsy, or at least it was on Mia’s part, because she’d never been prepared to see Janie, or to know what to say.

‘Mia?’ Janie’s soft voice had a slight lilt to it. ‘Have you got a moment?’