‘You look a bit tired,’ I said to her. She didn’t, really: she looked glitteringly awake and elegant as ever, but the sympathy in my voice softened her.

‘I am, I guess,’ she said, sliding a slice of mango into her mouth, then dabbing her lips with a tissue.

‘It must be hard for you, Leah.’

‘What must be?’

‘This house. I mean, it’s hard for me, and I’m just a tenant, not the landlord’s boyfriend. For what it’s worth, I think you’re being very impressive.’

‘Do you?’

‘I do,’ I said solemnly.

‘To be honest, sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel and leaving Miles to sort out his own stupid mess.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Why do you find it hard, though? You seem to get on so well with everyone.’

‘I think I do. But it’s all so complicated, isn’t it?’

‘You can say that again.’

‘Like, I can’t quite get the hang of who goes with who. Pippa, for instance.’

‘Ha – that’s easy. She goes with everyone.’

‘Yeah, well, I know about Mick.’

‘You mean she’s…?’

‘And then there was Owen, of course.’

‘Owen!’

‘Yeah – you knew about that, didn’t you? No? Oh, God, I’ve put my foot in it, haven’t I? I thought people knew. It was only a fling, I’m sure of it.’

‘So, Pippa and Owen.’ I could see her eyes gleam.

‘You won’t mention it, will you? Especially not to Astrid. I think Astrid and Owen, you know… But I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’ I struck the side of my head lightly. ‘Stupid me.’

She put a hand on my shoulder. Her manicured nails shone scarlet on my blue shirt. ‘Not stupid at all, my dear Davy.’

I gave Pippa’s thong and Astrid’s lip-gloss from the parcel to Melanie, who behaved as though I’d given her a diamond ring. I decided I’d use Owen’s condoms. And I started to watch everyone in the house with a new vigilance. I saw that everything was gathering to a head. The police wouldn’t think it was a coincidence that Astrid was at both murders. They wouldn’t understand how that had come about, how she had become my fate, my beloved destiny. But they would scrutinize her and everyone in her life. I had to be ahead of them.

Above all, I watched Astrid until I felt that there was nothing I didn’t know about her. What was in her drawers, what texts were on her mobile, how many times a week she washed her hair, what shampoo and conditioner she used, what deodorant and face cream, whom she met after work, what vegetables she planted in her garden and how many times a day she watered and weeded the small plot. Once or twice, while looking in her purse, I helped myself to some money. I knew her gestures and habits: the way she pushed her hair back impatiently, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, how she would kick off her shoes and tuck her long legs under her on the armchair, how she would blow on her coffee twice before sipping it, the colour of the varnish on her toenails. I stored every piece of information inside me. I had to be ready.

Chapter Thirty-seven

A couple of days later I was lying on my bed, entangled with Melanie, when there was a frantic knocking at the door. ‘Yes?’ I said.

‘Wait,’ said Melanie, but it was too late. The door opened and Dario came in. He didn’t pay any attention to her attempts to rearrange her clothing.

‘Have you heard?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘There’s a detective,’ he said. ‘He’s in the kitchen talking to Astrid.’

I didn’t answer. I was trying to think of some mistake I’d made, some connection I’d forgotten. That was the problem with lying. You had to remember how it all fitted together. Reality was easy. It took care of itself. But then I looked at Dario, sweating, eyes wide, and relaxed. Leah, Owen, Pippa, Mick, Miles, even Astrid. We all had our secrets. I felt Melanie’s arm slip through mine.

‘So, what’s the problem?’ she said.

‘I’m going downstairs,’ said Dario. ‘We should all act as if nothing’s wrong.’

‘But nothing is wrong,’ said Melanie.

‘That’s right,’ said Dario, half to himself. ‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.’

‘Dario,’ I said, ‘have you been smoking?’

I hardly needed to ask. His pupils were like black pinpricks.

‘Just to settle myself,’ he said.

He disappeared down the stairs. Melanie’s face nuzzled into my neck.

‘Shall we go down?’ she said, with a smile.

I looked at her. ‘Neaten yourself up a bit first,’ I said.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I was going to.’

When we walked into the kitchen, arms round each other in our swinging lovers’ pose, it looked as if a party was getting going. At the centre of things, seated at the table, was the detective. He was wearing a suit with the tie loosened and the top button of his shirt undone. His greying hair was brushed back over his head. His face was narrow, with quick, smiling eyes that darted round the room observing everyone, taking everything in. I disliked him immediately. Distrusted him. Be careful, I told myself. Mustn’t put a step wrong. Melanie and I sat at the table and grabbed a glass each of the wine Pippa was pouring. Melanie immediately started talking in a flirtatious, blushing way to him. I asked him if he was here to take statements. He looked at me properly for the first time, sizing me up. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Have you got something you want to say?’

Fuck, I thought. Fuck, fuck. I’d been trying to blend into the crowd and now I’d drawn attention to myself. ‘Not exactly,’ I stammered.

‘But some people have,’ said Leah.

I had to stop myself grinning. The attention had shifted to other people’s secrets and it was all my doing. Leah was like an evil little toy I had wound up and set going and now she was trundling around stirring things up and generally muddying the water. It culminated wonderfully with her dropping a bag of Dario’s weed on the table in front of Detective Chief Inspector Paul Kamsky. The evening went downhill from there.

The only good news was that Kamsky left without arresting Dario, or even cautioning him. But from then on it was meltdown.

Over the next day and the next I was a spectator as the house started to pull itself apart. I could hardly go anywhere without seeing people whispering together, making plans about people who used to be friends or lovers. Sometimes it was just cold stares across the kitchen. The best was when one of Pippa’s ex-lovers came and shouted on the doorstep, then threw a brick through the window at Leah. One by one, the secrets that had been suppressed so that these people could put up with each other were exposed for everyone to see.

Mostly I found it funny to watch what they were doing to each other but sometimes it got too much to bear and I felt as if it was happening inside my head, as if Dario had drawn a line across my brain, as if Leah’s manipulations and Pippa’s negotiations with Miles and whatever Astrid was up to with Owen and Mick and all of them, as if they were just voices jabbering away at each other. I felt like I should get drunk to shut them up and give me some peace, except I knew I had to think clearly. A single mistake, one word said in the wrong place, and I’d be done for.

Instead I left the house and walked away through street after street until I got to a park where I looked at couples arm in arm and mothers pushing buggies and a small boy failing to fly a kite. I felt like trying to help him because it irritated me, the way he was jerking the strings at the wrong moment, but then I remembered bad things happened to people who went up to small children in parks. I wondered how the two murder investigations were going. I tried to remember what Kamsky had said, or what people said he had said, and then I tried to make myself stop thinking about it. Because it was like dealing with women. The way to get away with it was not to care. Thinking too much was the way to get caught. But thinking was how I’d get myself out of this. Get to Brazil where the sun shone. That was the really stupid thing. I’d done a murder for money and got no money from it. No money, just this anxiety and the tightness in my head.