Marlow:… and that Miles Morgan is dead.

Janie:I know.

Marlow:Then you need to start talking to me.

Janie:(silence)

Marlow:You see, I can place all three of you at the quay on Monday night, and yet I can’t actually figure out what any of you were really doing there. Laura Denning was the last person to leave the office that night unharmed, wasn’t she? So, Janie, if you’re telling me you had nothing to do with the fire, then you must at least be able to tell me what she was doing there?

Janie:I already have. I honestly don’t know.

Marlow:Why she didn’t go straight home after she left. And why, an hour and a quarter later, she was still at the quay. And why she didn’t tell her husband that night that she knew there was a fire. You know what I’m wondering, Janie? I’m thinking something might have happened in that office before she left.

Janie:If it did, then I don’t—

Marlow:You don’t know. Yeah, I get it. And then we have Mia Anderson, too. Whom you met for lunch a couple of weeks ago, although it wasn’t her who asked you out, was it, Janie? Like you told me before.

Janie:No. I think maybe it was me.

Marlow:Because you wanted to find out what she was doing at your husband’s office?

Janie:No! Honestly, I promise you, that wasn’t it at all. My lunch with Mia was completely genuine.

Marlow:You didn’t recognise the name: Anderson?

Janie:No – I mean, it’s not an uncommon name. No, I didn’t have a clue then.

Marlow:But you do now. Why don’t you tell me how you knew Mia Anderson before she came to work at Morris & Wood?
     Janie? Did you not think we would find out?

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Woods’ party – three days before the fire

Laura didn’t think she’d had that many glasses of wine at the party, though she did know it was too many to drive home. She was twisted to her left, staring out of the passenger window so that she didn’t have to look at Harry.

Perhaps she’d had a few more than she’d realised. At several points her glass had been refilled before she could stop it. Maybe it was four or five. And she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, so the wine had gone straight to her head, and now the motion of the car was making her feel sleepy and a tiny bit nauseated; and the blurry memories of the night were swishing about in her head, sharp-daggered reminders of how she’d embarrassed herself.