‘I feel like a murderer,’ he said.

‘Don’t. We all behaved badly but -’

I stopped when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I closed the envelope and Miles and I stood silently, like two people with a guilty secret, as Davy and Mel pushed their way past us.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Davy.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said.

‘If there’s anything…’

‘Yes,’ I said, too quickly. ‘Yes, thanks.’

Mick came past. He didn’t say anything, but his feet echoed loudly on the uncarpeted stairs.

Chapter Twenty-one

I returned to my room and sat on my bed and contemplated the envelope full of money. I lifted it to my nose. It had a sour odour as if the notes had been contaminated by all the unclean fingers that had grasped them. How many were there? I tried to do the sum in my head and kept failing, then finally got it right: four hundred fifty-pound notes in a plump, bendy, scary pile. I looked around the room. Where could I put it? A drawer, behind the books, in the box of tissues, under my mattress? They all seemed hopeless and then I thought of Dario, bleaching his room in anticipation of the police search that would be coming any time now. If I hid the money in my room, the police would inevitably find it and then what? Was it a crime to have that much cash? Would I be legally obliged to explain it? They might think it was the contents of the missing package from Ingrid de Soto ’s house. Of course, Miles could explain what the money was for but, still, it wouldn’t look good.

I tucked the money into the inside pocket of my jacket. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t walk around with it like that. I could almost feel it hot against my chest. I needed to sort this out as quickly as possible, before everybody dispersed. I sat on my bed for a few moments, putting my head in my hands and trying not to see the faces of Ingrid de Soto and Leah – both faces beautiful and mutilated, with eyes that had stared accusingly up at me. I thought of Kamsky (‘You want a connection?’) and of Ingrid de Soto ’s father (‘What do you know, Ms Bell?’) and my brain fizzed uselessly. If I was the connection, then how – why? If I knew something without knowing it, what could it be? Was it somehow, beyond the shores of my comprehension, my fault?

I needed to speak to someone. That wasn’t right. I needed to speak to Owen. No one else would do. I stood up from the bed, suddenly realizing how exhausted I felt – hollow and shaky with tiredness – and stepped out of my room, where I almost collided with Dario who was manoeuvring a large cardboard box along the corridor.

‘What are you doing?’ I said.

‘I told Miles I was moving out,’ he said, his eyes darting around him nervously. ‘I can’t be in this place any more. But he said I had to get rid of my stuff first. I said he could keep it but he didn’t want any of it. It’s going to take days, and I don’t have days. I don’t have hours. Anything could happen. Everybody’s after me. They’re getting me one by one.’

‘I’m not after you,’ I said.

‘What time was it?’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you found it. I mean her, Leah.’

‘About half past ten.’

I saw an expression of intense concentration on his face. ‘I think I saw Mick,’ he said.

‘Mick told me he was asleep.’

‘I was doing stuff in the house,’ said Dario, frantically. ‘Everyone had gone to work. I met the postman. He made me sign for something.’

‘I don’t care, Dario. Tell the police, not me,’ I said. ‘By the way, I’ve got the money. I’ll give you your share before you go.’

Dario’s whole expression changed. ‘Really?’

‘I’ve got to work out the exact amount. By the way, have you seen Owen?’

‘He just got in.’

It took a few seconds of hovering nervously outside Owen’s door before I steeled myself to knock. There was no reply, but I pushed open the door. A travelling bag was gaping wide, with clothes spilling out. The doors of the wardrobe were ajar, revealing rows of empty hangers. Photographs that had been stacked along the walls were now in piles on the large desk. I sat down beside them, and idly lifted a few while I was waiting. Some I had seen before, others were unfamiliar. One, near the bottom of the pile, made me gasp. I put my hand against my heart. There was a sharp pain in my chest and for a few seconds I could do nothing but breathe raggedly.

The image was of the same woman Owen had photographed several times: perfectly bald, with a high-cheekboned unsmiling face and close-set eyes. But this time the eyes were shut. She was arranged like a corpse and on her face were marks. I stared while the image blurred, then resolved. Slashes scored firmly over her alabaster skin. Unequivocally like the slashes… Bile rose in my throat.

‘Hello.’

I spun round, letting the photos drop back on to the table and fan out.

‘Owen,’ I said. Fear was rippling through me and my mouth was dry.

‘You look done in.’ He gave me a smile that at any other time would have filled me with pleasure.

‘Yes.’

‘Horrible,’ he said. ‘I mean for you.’

‘You mean for her.’

‘For you. Do you want to tell me?’

‘No.’ I felt cold to the bone. Cold, tired, scared, wretched and sick. I wrapped my arms round my body and hugged myself.

‘Sometimes it’s better to…’

‘No.’

‘All right.’

‘Owen, I want to show you something.’ I shuffled through the photos on his desk, noticing that my hands were trembling, until I came to the one of the slashed face. ‘There.’

‘So?’ He looked at me, his face hardening.

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I want you to tell me – to tell me -’ I found I was having difficulty in forming words; they felt thick and unwieldy in my mouth. I pressed my hands together and continued: ‘To tell me why the marks on this woman’s face match the marks on the faces of Ingrid de Soto and Leah.’

There was an absolute silence. His face grew grim, as if the lighting had been turned down in the room, and he stared at me.

‘Well?’ I asked at last.

He took a step forward and, though I shrank back, he grasped my arms so hard that I felt his fingers digging painfully into my skin. ‘What are you saying?’

‘They were mutilated like that,’ I whispered.

‘Leah and the other?’

‘Yes. Let go, you’re hurting.’

He dropped his hands but didn’t move away.

‘Nobody knows. I wasn’t allowed to tell. How did you know?’

‘Shut up for a moment. Let me think.’

‘You must have known. Unless.’ I stopped.

‘Unless it was me?’

‘Yes.’

He gave a sour smile. ‘You think I took the photographs, then went and killed a woman – no, two women to make them look like that. Do you want to make a run for it now, before I attack you too?’

‘Stop it, Owen. Tell me.’

‘What?’ He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Tell you I didn’t kill them? That would be enough for you, would it? A denial?’

‘They’re identical.’

‘You need to decide whether or not you trust me.’

Without knowing what I was going to do, I lifted my hand and gave him a stinging slap on his cheek and he reeled back, lifting a fist. ‘This isn’t about us, you idiot,’ I said. ‘This is about women who are being murdered. You have to explain.’

Owen looked at me. He lowered his fist, unclenched it, and took a step backwards. His face lost its hard look, and instead became weary and bleak. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’

‘So?’

‘I don’t know.?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘The only explanation I can think of is that it’s a nasty coincidence. But I guess you’re sick of coincidences.’

‘If I were a detective, I’d want to know when you took the photograph. What day, what time.’

‘If you were a detective, I’d tell you I don’t know,’ said Owen. ‘I could tell you within a few days.’

‘Isn’t the time printed on the image?’