A few seconds later, a frantic Reverend Watts opened the door.

‘Please! Hurry!’ he cried.

His sleeves were soaking wet and pink; it took Imogen a few moments to realise it was actually blood. She pushed past him and ran into the house, unsure where she was supposed to go.

‘Where is she?’ Imogen shouted.

‘Upstairs, the bathroom,’ Reverend Watts said.

Imogen knew, she knew before she even got to the room what she was going to find. She was going to find Caitlin Watts’ dead body, in the bathtub, arms slit open from the inside of her wrist to the inside of her elbow. Imogen slipped on the polished floor, wet with a mixture of blood and water; at this point it looked like mostly blood. Caitlin lay in the bathtub, her skin whiter than the tiles and her hair floating in the deep pink water like tentacles. There was no need to check her pulse. She was dead. Any malice or anger Imogen may have felt for this girl disappeared in that instant. Caitlin had her whole life ahead of her – whatever mistakes she had made, she didn’t deserve this. But Imogen couldn’t shift the feeling that this wasn’t what it seemed. Why would she do it now? Caitlin had already confessed to lying about Adrian. She had been afraid for her life, for her grandfather. It was possible that she had committed suicide in order to stop their control over her, whoever they were. But it was just as possible that this had been staged, that she had been murdered.

In the back of her mind, she tried to figure out if Parker would have any reason to kill Caitlin. The scene was artistic, like something he would have done, but far too messy. She couldn’t think of a reason and decided that she would give him the benefit of the doubt for once. Unfortunately, the reverend had clearly been clambering around the bathtub, which had probably messed up any trace evidence of an intruder.

‘Bloody hell,’ Matt Walsh said. ‘I’ll call this in.’

‘I’ll do it. You’d better take the grandad downstairs for now as well. He doesn’t need to see this again, not that it will make much difference, that image is already in there.’

‘Poor kid,’ Matt said before turning to the reverend and speaking softly to him. Imogen couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was working. She could hear the man calming down.

Imogen pulled out her phone and called the station. She wanted to call Adrian and tell him what had happened but thought better of it. If anything went awry with the investigation, they could pull up her records and see. She would call him later. She wasn’t sure how he would take the news and she couldn’t bear the thought of him being pleased about it in any way. She couldn’t imagine he would be, but she didn’t want to hear that in his voice. Why would she even think that of him? It occurred to her that she was either putting Adrian on a pedestal unduly or she was looking for ways to find fault in the relationship. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was all moving a little too fast.