‘You picked a dud there, love. Turns out he actually was Ivan the Terrible after all. Terrible at doing your dirty work. Should’ve seen his face when he opened the boot and I leapt out. We came to a wee arrangement, though – I’d say nothing about the body with a head like a burst watermelon in his boot; he’d let me go, as long as I paid him fifty thousand roubles and disappeared. You were never to find out, of course. Until I saw what you were up to. That first email you sent to Laura almost gave you away.’

I nod. Calm again now. I know I’ve messed up. It was a risk, and it could’ve paid off, but it didn’t. ‘I realised that. I was terrified that I’d given myself away straight off … then she replied, and I thought it was OK.’

‘She was suspicious, but I got to her fast. I spoke to her. I told her we’d just have to come up with a wee plan of our own. If you were pretending to be me, then I would pretend to be her. She gave me her email login, and the two of us kept in touch via different email addresses and on the phone. I’m not sure what you were hoping to achieve, pretending to be me – maybe just to give you enough time to detach yourself from me, so that when people at home sussed out that it wasn’t me writing those emails, you’d be long gone? Tell me, Violet. Tell me, because I am genuinely interested in how your psychopathic brain actually works…’

Something occurs to me, and I realise what an idiot I’ve been. How my plan was flawed from the start. ‘How did you know I was here?’

Carrie barks out a laugh. She nods towards the laptop. Her laptop. ‘You kept that – but you forgot to disconnect it from the cloud. Ivan gave me my phone, and I was still connected to it via the cloud. I kept expecting you to notice, to realise what was going on. If I hadn’t had my phone, I don’t think I could’ve done it – not without another device back-up. I told you Ivan was an idiot. Find my device is much more accurate than tracking people via their Facebook check-ins.’

I smirk. I still have an ace up my sleeve. ‘I read your drafts, Carrie. I know what you did…’

Her face clouds for a moment, and then she looks down, won’t meet my eye. ‘What I did was an accident…’

‘I doubt Greg sees it like that.’

She lifts her head and sighs. ‘You’re right, V. It’s something I need to take care of. I know that. Things got out of hand. But you don’t know Greg … you don’t—’

‘You hit him.’ My voice is incredulous.