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Amy blinked at him. ‘What?’ There was so much other stuff whirling around inside her head that she barely registered his tone.

‘You keep saying that, like I’m some sort of elderly uncle you’re humouring, instead of—’

‘Instead of what?’ Amy’s heart sank, although she knew that this conversation was already overdue. She was vaguely curious to know how he
did
see his role in her life – just not at that minute.

‘Well, I don’t know, Amy. What are we? Friends, or lovers; both or neither? I’m not stupid enough to think we’re girlfriend and boyfriend.’

She sat down next to him and picked up the baby bootee she was knitting, desperate for something to do with her hands. Knitting was safer than smoking. Or self-harming. She was on her fourth bootee and had yet to make two that were near enough the same size to be considered a matching pair. For a moment, she pretended to be counting stitches. Gary’s words had hurt her feelings, and simultaneously irritated her – surely, Gary couldn’t have expected her to give serious thought to their ‘relationship’, whatever it was, under these circumstances?

‘Friends, without a doubt, at the very least,’ she eventually said, putting down the knitting again and turning to him, placing her hand on his bare knee. ‘I know that I couldn’t have got through all this so far without you. But, forgive me, Gary, honestly, with Becky gone and now Katherine dead, I just can’t think about anything else … I’m really not ready for a relationship just yet – but please don’t give up on me? It’s not easy for me to say it … but I really need you. I’m sorry if I led you on last night. Please don’t think I make a habit of it. It was lovely though, wasn’t it?’ She smiled tentatively up at him but he didn’t smile back.

‘It was amazing,’ he said, scratching his stomach. ‘That’s why I’m gutted you don’t want to do it again.’

‘I do!’ she protested, forcing herself to look at his knee and not in the direction of his boxers. ‘I mean – you’re hot, Gary, you really are. But I mean, this just isn’t the right time … You do understand, don’t you?’

Gary removed her hand, stood up and walked towards the bedroom. ‘Loud and clear. Probably for the best. I’m going to get dressed now. Are you sure you don’t want me to come to Clive’s?’

She jumped up and gave him a hug, which he held on to for far too long. ‘No, I think I can get him to talk better if I go on my own. But thanks. Make sure you close the door properly when you leave, won’t you?’

The police told Amy that Clive had discovered Katherine’s body at the cottage, even though the couple had split up some weeks earlier and Clive had officially moved out, so she decided the best way to track him down would be to start there. She had no idea where he’d moved to after the split, but perhaps the old man next door would have a forwarding address for him.

But when she arrived and kicked down the bike stand by the kerb outside the cottage, she saw straightaway that she wouldn’t need to involve the neighbour. There was a uniformed policeman outside the partly open front door, and crime-scene tape strung from the hedge on either side of the front gate. A small group of onlookers had gathered a few doors down, gossiping and gaping at the house and at the black private ambulance parked next to two squad cars. With a shiver of horror, Amy realized that Katherine’s body was likely still inside.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the PC, taking off her helmet and feeling the glaring sun on her face. ‘The police told me this morning about … what’s happened in here. I need to talk to Clive, Katherine’s ex. Do you know where he is?’

The PC was a young Asian man with a fluffy moustache and traces of acne on his cheeks.

‘He’s not here, madam. This is a protected area – the coroner is still inside.’ He took out a notepad, flicked it open and hovered a pencil over the top. ‘Could I have your name please?’

‘Amy Coltman,’ she said, trying to look over his shoulder into the house. ‘Katherine Devine was a friend of my sister’s, and my sister has been missing for a week. I need to talk to Katherine’s ex. The police at Camberwell station told me that he discovered the body here last night.’

He laboriously wrote down everything she said, all the while glancing up at her as if worried she was going to shoulder-barge past him.

‘So he must have been here earlier,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t have his number – if you can’t tell me where he is, please could you ring him and ask him if he’ll talk to me?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Coltman, but we’re not allowed to give out witness information.’

‘I’m not asking you to give out witness information, I’m asking you to contact him on my behalf.’ The glimpse of a white-suited forensics person moving down the hallway carrying a camera – Amy couldn’t tell if it was male or female – made her feel nauseous. Would these people be doing the same thing soon, in another house, with Becky’s body lying on a floor somewhere?

‘Are you all right, Miss?’

Amy took a deep breath and concentrated on an ant carrying a fragment of tortilla chip four times its size across the flagstone by her feet. She nodded, unable to speak, wishing that Gary was with her after all. The PC took pity on her.

‘I can tell you, if it’s any help, that Mr Clive Dick was met here by a member of the band he plays in. They mentioned they were going straight to the pub to have a drink, for the shock. If you know which pub they mean, you might find him there.’

Amy hadn’t known that Clive’s surname was Dick. Poor guy. As if things weren’t bad enough for him. So – one of his mates from the band had collected him. Which pub would they go to? The only one she could think of was the one she and Gary had been to, where his band had been playing. It was local, and they played there regularly, so it could be the one.

‘Thanks – I think I know where he might be. I’ll try there.’

‘I’ll just take your address and phone number, if I may, Miss Coltman,’ said the PC, pencil hovering again. Amy gave him the details, put on her helmet, and got back on her bike, wishing that she could accelerate to eighty miles an hour to get as far away as she could from the knowledge of Katherine’s dead body – not to mention the knowledge of having to confront a grief-stricken man who already hated her sister and, by default, her.

‘Clive?’ she said tentatively, approaching the dark corner of a back room of the Crown where, even at eleven thirty, several empties were accumulating on a small table in front of him. He was there alone, his head buried in his arms, shoulders shaking. Amy’s heart sank even further.

She touched his arm and he jumped, staring up at her with wild, streaming eyes. ‘You again. I suppose you’ve heard.’

She sat down next to him. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Clive. I really am. I just can’t believe it.’ Tears filled her own eyes.

‘What do you want? I doubt you’ve come over here to give me your condolences.’ He sounded flat and resigned.

Amy sniffed hard. ‘Well, I have – but not only that.’

‘So your sister hasn’t showed up yet.’

She shook her head. ‘Clive … I know you hate Becky – and for whatever reason you blame her for what happened between you and Katherine, and if she did split you two up, then I don’t blame you – but this isn’t about Becky.’

Clive lifted up his pint with shaking hands, closing his eyes as he drank deeply, as though the act of swallowing would take away his pain. He was such a funny little man, thought Amy, trying to imagine him and the larger-than-life Katherine together, when they were happy. He looked like Katherine would have eaten him for dinner, although maybe he was one of those men who changed behind closed doors: meek in public, strong in private.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Not just about Becky,’ Amy corrected herself. She bit her lip – this part was going to be hard. ‘It’s about me, going insane, because I’m convinced something bad has happened to her. It’s about my mum and dad and grandparents, who’ll all be devastated if it has. It’s about everyone who loves her – some of them will be mourning Katherine soon, when they find out. All their work colleagues, and all the boys at school … All their friends, who’ll have to cope with one death, wondering if it’s two … Whatever your own personal feelings about her are, Clive, please don’t put us all through what you’re going through over Katherine. Please?’

Amy had to stop talking because suddenly she was crying too much, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by her suppressed sobs. She delved in her bag for a tissue. She didn’t dare look at Clive – in fact, she was worried that he would simply walk out and never speak to her, ever.

Clive’s friend reappeared, having been outside for a cigarette. He reeked of smoke and was slightly unsteady on his feet. Amy briefly wondered why they hadn’t just sat outside in the garden if he was smoking, but when she did pluck up strength to look at Clive, she knew: he couldn’t be out in the sunshine, not when everything in his world was so unrelentingly dark.

‘All right, mate?’ Clive’s friend clapped him on the back, slightly too hard, making Clive’s pint glass clink against his front teeth. ‘I’m Jerry,’ he said to Amy. ‘Were you a good friend of Katherine’s?’ He sounded embarrassed. ‘Awful business. Drinking’s the only answer. It’s my round – what can I get you?’

It wasn’t even noon, but they were both well on the way to complete inebriation.

‘I’m on my bike, thanks, but a Coke would be lovely,’ said Amy, gesturing to the helmet by her feet. Jerry weaved off into the saloon bar. ‘Same again for you, sir,’ he called back over his shoulder – a comment, not a question.

‘He never liked Kath,’ Clive said to Amy, wiping his eyes. ‘Good mate, though. You didn’t like her either, did you?’

At least he was talking to her. It was a start.

‘I hardly knew her. Honestly, I only met her once or twice with my sister. I thought she was an amazing artist. I was going to ask her to write something for my website. I’ve got this crafts website, you see, called Upcycle.com, it’s—’

‘So what do you want to know?’ Clive interrupted. For the first time, he looked properly at her, through bloodshot, heavily lidded eyes. He could pass for a 60-year-old man, thought Amy, bowed by grief and fury.

She took a deep breath. ‘You know about the Internet dating, that they were both doing it?’

Clive’s mouth twisted with something: disgust, or pain, or both.

‘I’ve already told the police all about that. It’s why we split up. Spent hours with them this morning, going over and over it. She would’ve settled down with me, I know she would. She just wanted to sow some wild oats first.’

‘Did they tell you about this guy, Fraser?’

Clive hesitated, as though teetering on the edge of a waterfall.

‘They told me there was someone she and Becky both went on a date with. They didn’t tell me his name. They think he might have given her the drugs she had on her. God knows, she couldn’t have afforded to buy them, the amount they found.’

‘Fraser. He’s a nasty piece of work.’

‘How do you know him? Going out with your – your –
sister
, was he?’

He had clearly been about to insert a choice adjective – all the venom was back in his voice. Amy made a colossal effort to keep calm.

‘No, he wasn’t. They came across him on the same dating website – they were both members. What I want to ask you is: do you know what Katherine’s password is … I mean, was?’ She blushed. ‘For her email. And the website, if you know it, but obviously, I wouldn’t expect you to …’

Jerry came back with a Coke for Amy and another pint for Clive. ‘I’ll be in the garden,’ he said, with clear relief that someone else was taking a shift at babysitting Clive. ‘Need to call in sick to work before I get fired.’ He slid his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and headed back to the garden, ignoring Amy’s thanks.

‘The police have her laptop,’ Clive said coldly. ‘Why don’t you ask them?’

Amy felt crushed. Of course the police would have taken away Katherine’s computer for analysis. Had she really thought it would be that easy? What an idiot. She bit the tip of her tongue hard, feeling saliva flood into her mouth, to try to stop herself crying again.

‘I will ask them, of course, but they won’t tell me, will they? … I found out last night that Becky and Katherine were using a hook-up site to meet men … for sex. They both met Fraser through it and maybe there were other men they both went on … dates with.’ Clive blanched but she had to press on. ‘At first, I tried to track down the men Becky had met on the other site, CupidsWeb, but that was a dead end.’

She took a sip of her Coke. ‘But maybe Becky met someone on this hook-up site who can help me find her, and if they had both been with Fraser, chances are that there are other men they both met up with too. So, if I can see Kath’s emails …’

Clive shrugged, and rubbed his hand across his face. ‘Listen, no offence, Annie …’

‘Amy.’

‘Amy. No offence, but I don’t really understand why you’re talking to me. That’s what the police are there for. They have her MacBook. They have all the information. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I found the body of my girlfriend – the woman I thought I was going to marry – on the floor of our house. I get that you’re upset about your sister, but you need to go away now, and leave me to get quietly wankered until I pass out and Jerry will take me home so that I can go to sleep without dreaming of my fiancée.’

Fiancée? That was a new one, thought Amy. She noticed he’d dropped the ‘ex’ as well. Still, she couldn’t blame him. She sighed. Another dead end. Back to Camberwell nick, she supposed.

‘OK. I’ll go … and thanks for talking to me, I really appreciate it. Just one thing before I go: what was Kath’s email address?’

‘It was [email protected].’

‘Gmail. So her emails can be accessed from any computer?’

‘Yeah. Of course.’ Clive made eye contact with her for the first time and Amy saw that, underneath the red veins, he had good eyes – clear, hazel pupils fringed with black.

She held her breath. ‘Clive … what was her Gmail password? Did you know it?’

He just stared at her.

‘Please, Clive?’

‘I don’t know.’

Everything in her deflated again, and she turned to go. ‘Oh. Oh, well. Worth a shot, I guess. Thanks.’