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‘Do you have any family here now?’
‘No, my parents died.’
‘Where were you living before?’
‘In Swindon. We had a little house. We’d still be there if we hadn’t won the lottery.’
‘You won the lottery?’
‘That’s how we got all this. We’re just getting used to it all, really.’
‘How much did you win if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Ten million pounds.’
She watches that sink in. Usually, she keeps the win to herself, but they’ll find out anyway. If they’re going to treat her as a suspect, they’re bound to factor money into their thinking.
‘But we didn’t go public, and I don’t want people knowing now,’ she says.
She pushes the card back towards Detective Steen. She hates it. It was in Tom’s pocket when he died, an intimate place, and yet it seems like a suspicious, alien object, both to her life and to his.
He puts the card away and says, ‘If you want to, you’re free to move back home now. We’ve finished our work there.’
She nods. ‘Thank you,’ she says. Her mind is racing. Was there something I didn’t know about Tom? she asks herself. It doesn’t feel possible, because they’ve been together since childhood, and they are, were, each other’s best friend, but then none of this felt possible twenty-four hours ago.
8
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
Anna’s Journal
Yoga was fantastic! I was so nervous about going but I didn’t need to be. Sasha was as welcoming as Kitty said she would be, and I wasn’t the worst in the group! I’m stiff as a board today but I’m going to go back again. Sasha said I’d get the most benefit out of going more than once a week, so I’ve decided to attend class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I bought Kitty a bottle of wine as a thank you for suggesting it and she said she was pleased for me and that she knew Sasha would look after me.
I had a haircut, too, though I drew the line at getting my nails done because it felt extravagant, and I also bought myself some new leggings and a T-shirt for yoga.
When I got home, I showed Kitty my new things and she said the haircut was lovely and made me look much better. I was pleased to hear it because Sasha has invited me for a coffee after class on Thursday. She likes to go for a hot drink with allnew pupils, she says, and get to know them. Her approach is that she wants to treat the whole person, not just the body.
Even that one session of yoga has made me face up to the ways in which I’ve been declining. I’m stiff when I wake up. My muscles are getting weaker and complaining more. It’s the ageing process, I know, but I feel as if it accelerated while Nick was ill and in the aftermath. And it’s not just that. I’ve been mislaying things, too. This morning I put down my reading glasses in the kitchen and, when I went back to get them, they weren’t there. Eventually I found them in the bedroom. I told Kitty and she said it happens to her a lot. Apparently, she searched for her glasses everywhere the other day and they were on her head all along. I took some comfort from that, but it was confusing. I was certain I left my glasses on the kitchen table. I remember wearing them downstairs.
My memory isn’t what it used to be.
9
SUNDAY
Sasha
‘What are you doing?’ Kitty asks and Sasha jumps away from the kitchen door.
‘Don’t creep up on me like that!’ she hisses, cross with herself for having been busted. But who could resist listening to Nicole’s interview with the detectives? She was intrigued to learn about the business card the police found in Tom’s pocket and the coffee cups. What did he get up to the morning he died? Her brain is popping with possibilities.
‘Are you eavesdropping?’ Kitty asks.
Sasha steps out of the hallway and into the Yellow Room, gesturing to Kitty to follow her. She pulls the door to behind them. Even though she asked it lightly, it’s a surprisingly bold question from Kitty and Sasha’s not going to admit she was listening. ‘I thought I heard them finishing up the interviewand I wanted to see if Nicole is okay. But I think they’re still talking.’
Kitty sighs. ‘It’s terrible. How long do you think Nicole is going to stay here? Should I get some more groceries in?’
‘I don’t know. For as long as she needs to, I suppose.’
