‘I don’t hate you,’ I said, and even to myself it failed to convince. Hadn’t I wanted to kill her just days ago? Hadn’t I fantasised about punching her over and over in her lying face? Hadn’t I told the police all her secrets, the ones she’d trusted me with, her worst moments and darkest deeds? ‘I wish I could help. But I didn’t see it. He didn’t say anything to me when I woke him. He was passed out cold.’

‘But he could have. No one else was there. No one else would have heard. He might have said, I’m sorry, or, I didn’t mean to hurt her, or she wanted it. Something like that.’

I couldn’t imagine Mike saying any of those things. He wasn’t usually one for apology or pleading. He didn’t see the point – what was done was done, no sense in dwelling on it.

She said, ‘Maybe you didn’t remember right away. In the shock. Or you didn’t want to believe. But maybe you’ll go away and think about whether you heard anything that night, anything to back my story up, and if you do you’ll go to the police again.’ She looked me in the eyes. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve lied to them.’

She had me there. The implicit threat, the knowledge that this line was one I’d crossed before. I couldn’t say I was too moral to do it. I wasn’t.

‘And if I do that?’

‘Well. Maybe then I could talk to Jakey and explain the situation.’

I understood her perfectly. There was no need to say anything else. After all, we’d been best friends for over half our lives. ‘If I do . . . No one can know I was here today. It’s a crime.’

‘Right.’

‘Your neighbours?’

She shrugged. ‘Bunch of potheads and sleep-deprived mums. They don’t even know my name. I can always say I didn’t let you in.’

It was shocking, how easy it was, when it came down to it. To lie. To break the law. And what a choice to make – saving Mike’s life, lying, committing a crime myself. I could go to prison for something like that. Both Mike and I could end up in there, if I did what she wanted. Saving his life so he could go on trial and probably be convicted. ‘Can I think about it?’

‘Don’t take too long. Sounds like Mike’s in a bad way.’ Had she no feeling left for him, after all those years of being together? I nodded, then I got up and went out, down the smelly stairs, leaving her standing in the doorway with her too-big sweatshirt wrapped around her bony body.

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty