What an apt metaphor, Charlie thought as she reached into her handbag for her phone; Liv and Gibbs had been walking the precarious tightrope of secret infidelity for several years now. How long before they fell off and got found out by one or the other of their spouses? Perhaps this was the “Oh my God, we’ve been rumbled” text that Charlie was always, on some level, expecting to arrive.

Thankfully, it wasn’t. The message said, “Can’t make drinks later, sorry! Can we rearrange? I’ll send other dates! xxx!”

Fine. Good, in fact. Though rather odd—Liv had almost insisted on meeting this evening, so why the sudden blasé cancellation? Charlie couldn’t summon the energy to send a reply. The crisis that Liv would one day inflict on her had been staved off for the time being, but the pattern of breath-holding followed by postponement was growing ever more draining. Charlie resented the small bursts of relief she felt every time a message arrived from Liv that wasn’t notification of a state of emergency; she hated the idea that her sister could at any moment become a disaster area that she would have to drop everything in order to attend to.

Like when she had life-threatening cancer. Except that hadn’t been Liv’s fault. Falling in love with Chris Gibbs was.

“Has Gibbs been different with you lately?” Charlie asked Simon. “Ingratiating himself more than usual?”

That caught Simon’s attention. “Now you mention it . . . yes. He’s put himself out for me a few times recently when there was no need.”

“He’s been sucking up to me too. Then yesterday Liv called and said she wanted to take me out for cocktails, her treat—that’s what she’s just canceled. They’re up to something. Whatever it is, they need us buttered up and onside. They want something from us.”

“If Liv’s canceled, though . . .” Simon shrugged. “Maybe they’ve decided they don’t want it, whatever it is.”

“Liv never decides she doesn’t want something,” said Charlie. “She always decides she wants even more.”

“Six ones.”

“Pardon?”

“Six ones, in a row,” Simon said. “What does that mean to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Anything.”

“One hundred and eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven?” Charlie suggested. It was bound to be the wrong answer: too obvious.

“Riddy one hundred and eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven.”

“What’s—”

“Here’s the important question,” Simon talked over her. “Did the killer turn up at Blundy’s house intending to stab him, sharpen the knife and then change his mind for some reason, or was there never going to be a stabbing? Was it never part of the plan?”