Callum looked grave. ‘Bugger, I’d no idea it was so bad. Ali, I’m sorry. We’ve been rubbish – it’s just Jodi can barely leave the house, and I’m so slammed at work. I’ll call in and see him, shall I?’

I shook my head. ‘He won’t know you’re there. Thank you, though.’

‘Wish I could do something to help.’

‘The main thing you could do would be help me figure out these payments.’ I shuffled among the papers on the table – clutter that would never have been there before all this – to find the financial statements Bill had been going through. ‘Bi – er, I managed to find out it’s some kind of shell company, but I don’t know which, or why Mike would be paying money to it.’

‘Hmm.’ Callum took the papers, frowning. ‘I can take a look, sure. These things can be tricky to decipher though.’

I popped teabags into mugs and poured the water on. As I carried them over, Callum said, ‘Heard you went to Oxford.’

‘Oh?’

‘Victoria and Jodi keep in touch. She’s very good at that, keeping in touch.’ Jodi was good at everything. ‘Why did you do that, Al?’

‘I just . . . they’ve reopened the case. Martha’s. They might charge Mike with it.’

He looked incredulous. ‘After all this time?’

‘Maybe. Cal, did you . . .’ I hesitated. ‘You’ve told me everything you remember about the ball, right?’

He was thoughtful. ‘He was with her. You know that.’

‘For a while?’ I held his gaze. Had Mike lied to me about this too?

Callum screwed up his face. ‘Yeah. I saw them together, in the garden. Kissing.’

‘And then?’

‘I left them to it. I was – well, I was bloody angry, to be honest. That he’d do that to you.’

‘So it wasn’t the truth – that he just took her to the garden and went?’ He told me he’d left her there and immediately gone back to the ball, looking for me. But that wasn’t true.

‘I don’t think so. Sorry, Al.’

‘He lied to me.’ That explained Mike’s panic after Martha had been found – he knew he’d been with her much longer than he’d said. That people could have seen them. That maybe his DNA was even on her, if he’d kissed her. ‘Jesus.’

‘I wanted to tell you but – well, let sleeping dogs lie, that’s what they say. I thought it was best. I’m sorry.’ Callum closed his hand over mine, and I was grateful for it, but at the same time I couldn’t believe the way everyone had kept secrets from me all these years, covered for Mike and his indiscretions. Although, of course, I’d kept secrets of my own as well.

1996

‘Hey,’ said Bill, as I reached him on the lawn.