Meredith looked across the room to the little alcove in which she did her work. This was meant to convey that she did not have a moment to spare, but Gina apparently wasn’t going to read anything into Meredith’s actions that she didn’t want to read just now. She said, “I found…Meredith, what I found…I don’t know what to make of it but I think I know and I don’t want to know and I need to talk to someone…,” and the mention of finding something hooked Meredith at once.

“What is it?”

Gina winced, as if Meredith had spoken too loudly. She glanced round the office and said, “C’n we talk outside?”

“I’m just off my break. I’ve got to-”

“Please. Five minutes. Less, even. I…I phoned Robbie Hastings to find out where you were. He didn’t want to tell me. I don’t know what he thought. But I told him you and I had spoken and that I needed another woman and as I’ve no friends yet…Oh it’s stupid ever to tie oneself to a man. I knew it and I did it anyway with Gordon because he seemed so different from other men I’ve known…” Her eyes filled but no tears spilled over. Instead, the moisture made them luminous. Meredith wondered, ridiculously, how she managed that. How did any woman manage to look attractive so close to tears? She herself got all red in the face.

Meredith gestured towards the doorway. They stepped into the corridor. It seemed that Gina meant to go down the stairs and out into Ringwood High Street, but Meredith said to her, “It’ll have to be here.” She added, “Sorry,” when Gina turned back and looked a little taken aback by the abruptness of Meredith’s declaration.

“Yes. Of course.” Gina smiled tremulously. “Thank you. I’m grateful. You see, I just didn’t…” She began to fumble with the straw bag she was carrying. She brought out a simple envelope. She lowered her voice. “The police from London have been to see us. From Scotland Yard. They came about Jemima and they asked Gordon-they asked us both-where we were the day she was killed.”

Meredith felt a piercing of pleasure. Scotland Yard! A triumphant Yes! shot through her brain.

“And?” she asked.

Gina looked round as if to see who might be listening. “Gordon had been there,” she said.

Meredith grabbed her arm. “What? In London? The day she was murdered?”

“The police came because there was a postcard they found. It had her picture on it. Meredith, he’d put them up all round London. At least round the area where he thought she was. He admitted this when the police showed it to him.”

“A postcard? With her picture? What in God’s name…?”

Gina stumbled through an explanation that Meredith scarcely followed: the National Portrait Gallery, a photograph, a competition of some sort, an advertisement, whatever. Gordon had seen it, had gone to London months earlier, had bought God only knew how many postcards and had put them up like wanted posters. “He put his mobile number on the back,” Gina said.

Meredith felt ice run down her arms. “Someone phoned him because of the postcard,” she whispered. “He found her, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Gina said. “He said he didn’t. He told me he was in Holland.”

“When?”

“The day. That day. You know what day. When Jemima…You know. But that’s not what he said to the police, Meredith. Instead, he told them he was working. I asked him why did he tell them that and he said Cliff would give him an alibi.”

“Why didn’t he just tell them that he was in Holland?”

“That’s what I asked him. He said he couldn’t prove it. He said he’d thrown everything away. I said they could phone the hotel he stayed in and they could phone the farmer he’d talked to but…Meredith, that wasn’t the point, really.”

“What do you mean? Why wasn’t it the point?”

“Because…” Her tongue came out and licked her lips, pink with a lipstick that matched one of the colours in the sundress she was wearing. “I already knew, you see.”

“What?” Meredith felt her head was spinning. “Had he been to London? On the day she died? Then why didn’t you tell-”

“Because he didn’t know-he doesn’t know-that I’d found him out. He’s been avoiding certain topics for ages, and whenever I’ve got close to whatever he doesn’t want to talk about, he just avoids. Twice, even, he’s gone a bit wild, and last time he did that, he…he frightened me. And now I’m thinking, what if he’s the one? What if he…? I can’t stand to think he might be but…I’m afraid, and I don’t know what to do.” She shoved the envelope into Meredith’s hands. She said, “Look.”

Meredith slid her finger beneath the flap, which didn’t seal the envelope but merely folded inward to contain the contents. There were just three items: two rail tickets to and from London and a hotel receipt for one night’s stay. The hotel bill had been paid by credit card and Meredith reckoned the date of stay was the same as Jemima’s death.

Gina said, “I’d found these already. I was taking out the rubbish-this was the day after his return-and they were tucked into the bottom. I wouldn’t have seen them at all had I not dropped an earring into the wastepaper basket. I reached in to find it and I saw the colour of the ticket and I knew what it was, of course. And when I saw it, I reckoned he’d gone up there because of Jemima. I thought at first that it wasn’t over between them, like he’d told me, or if it was, they had unfinished business of some sort. And I wanted to talk to him about it at once, but I didn’t. I was…You know how it is when you’re afraid to hear the truth?”

“What truth? God, did you know he’d done something to her?”

“No, no! I didn’t know she was dead! I mean I thought it wasn’t over between them. I thought he still loved her and if I confronted him, that’s what he’d have to say. Then it would be over between us and she’d return and I hated the thought of her returning.”

Meredith narrowed her eyes. She could see the trick, if trick it was: For perhaps Jemima and Gordon had mended their fences. Perhaps Jemima had intended to return. And if that was the case, what was to prevent Gina herself from making the trip to London, doing away with Jemima, and keeping the ticket and the hotel receipt to pin the crime on Gordon? What a nice bit of vengeance from a woman scorned.

Yet something wasn’t right in all this. But the various possibilities made Meredith’s head pound.

Gina said, “I’ve been afraid. Something’s very wrong, Meredith.”

Meredith handed the envelope back to her. “Well, you’ve got to turn this over to the police.”

“But then they’ll come to see him again. He’ll know I was the one to turn him in and if he did hurt Jemima-”

“Jemima’s dead. She’s not hurt. She’s murdered. And whoever killed her needs to be found.”

“Yes. Of course. But if it’s Gordon…It can’t be Gordon. I refuse to think…There has to be an explanation somewhere.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask him, won’t you?”

“No! I’m not safe if he…Meredith, don’t you see? Please. If you don’t help me…I can’t do it on my own.”

“You must.”

“Won’t you…?”

“No. You’ve got the story. You know the lies. There’d be only one outcome if I went to the police.”

Gina was silent. Her lips quivered. When her shoulders dropped, Meredith saw that Gina had worked things out for herself. Should Meredith take the rail tickets and the hotel receipt to the local police or to the Scotland Yard cops, she would only be repeating what someone else had told her. That someone else was exactly the person the police would seek next, and Gordon Jossie would likely be right there when the detectives arrived to put questions to Gina.

Gina’s tears fell then, but she brushed them away. She said, “Will you come with me? I’ll go to the police, but I can’t face it alone. It’s such a betrayal and it might mean nothing and if it means nothing, don’t you see what I’m doing?”

“It doesn’t mean nothing,” Meredith said. “We both know that.”