“Are you the attacker?” he asked Julie.

“No.”

“Are you the attacker?” This time, Pedro.

“No.”

“Are you the attacker?” Now it was Luan’s turn.

“No.”

Jay continued asking his question, and again he asked some of them twice, even three times. Each time every one of them answered no, and they all seemed to be growing irritated. Pedro swore in Portuguese, while Luan’s cheeks grew red and Julie pulled a strop.

“This is a joke,” she griped, and stared daggers at Jay. “Seriously, do you even know what you’re doing?”

Jay put his finger to his lips to hush her, and quiet descended. He bowed his head for a moment, as though trying to think, then whipped it up and pointed to Antonio and Pedro. “You both can go join the others at the back.” There was a light in his eyes now as he studied his final four suspects, and a chill came over me, because something told me Jay had finally decided who the guilty party was. Jack must have seen me shiver, because he pulled me close and wrapped both his arms around my shoulders. I sank into his hard, sturdy frame, seeking comfort as I listened to Jay speak.

“So, I should probably explain my method here. Otherwise, I can hardly go pointing fingers, now, can I? I asked everyone the same three questions, asking for two truths and one falsehood. This was to get your baselines. Most everybody has a tell when they lie. Therefore, if you were telling me two truths and one lie, the odd reaction out is the lie – the tell. You,” he began, and pointed to Luan, “are typical. You look to the left when you lie. You’re a very reliable liar. You look to the left every time. This transparency indicates that you’re probably quite an honest person. However, you’re also nervous under interrogation, which made you slightly more difficult to read when I asked the final two questions.” Jay paused and took a breath, while I felt like I was holding mine. “Luckily for you, though, you aren’t the one I’m looking for today. You can go to the back with the others.” Luan seemed beside himself with relief as he ran a hand down his face and walked to the back. Lola immediately pulled him into her arms when he reached her and gave him a long hug.

This time Jay brought his attention to Julie. “Now you, my dear, are an interesting one. When you lie, you show almost no tell at all. But I have an eye for detail, and I did notice that you press your lips together ever so slightly when you’re telling a fib. It’s practically imperceptible, but what can I say? I have a talent for this.”

“For crying out loud, will you just get to the point already,” Julie complained, arms folded in a defensive posture.

“You’re not the attacker,” Jay answered her curtly. “Go to the back.”

Julie shot Jay a sharp look that was all, I told you so, then strutted her way over to stand with the rest of us. I locked eyes with Matilda, and she gave me a tiny smile before whispering, “He’s scary good at this, isn’t he?”

I nodded, then only realised Marina was standing behind us when she added, “Your husband has a flair for the dramatic. I wonder if I could tempt him to come and join the circus.”

Matilda smiled at her, shrugged, then returned her attention to the stage, as did I. King and Aiden were the only two men left standing, and a feeling of dread claimed my belly as I remembered Aiden’s behaviour with Bea earlier this morning. He’d been rough and abrupt, and he clearly hadn’t been taking proper care of his little girl. But did that make him a killer? Certainly not.

And then there was King. Such a mystery. Such an enigma. I’d heard so much about what a success he’d been once upon a time. Surely, to be so successful and then end up a homeless drunk meant something really bad must have happened to him. Or maybe he was the one who did the bad thing. Maybe he was the killer. I hated to admit that in an odd way I’d grown fond of King, and I didn’t want it to be him. At same time, I didn’t want it to be Aiden, either, because that would mean Bea would be left without a parent.

God, this was awful. Jay’s attention rested on King for a moment before moving to Aiden, then went back to King.

“Your tell, Mr King, is that you don’t have one. In fact, you really don’t care at all if I know whether you’re lying or telling the truth. Perhaps you’ve lied about far worse things than murder and rape in the past. But then, what’s worse than that? No, I think you’re an example of apathetic nihilism at its finest, and I would love to know the reason as to why. I’m still not even sure if you misled me at all on those first three questions. And this is where the rub lies, because if you don’t have a tell, I can’t determine whether or not you’re lying.”

Jay went silent, eyes flicking back and forth between the two men as he stopped pacing and stood in front of them, feet shoulder width apart and arms folded.

“Fortunately for you,” Jay said while pointing a finger at King before swiping it to Aiden. “Aiden here has quite a spectacular tell. It’s like a big, angry, throbbing vein that pulses in the forehead when a person is angry. Yes, when Aiden lies, he moves his jaw and his left eyebrow shoots right up to heaven. Quite frankly, it’s glorious.” Jay gestured wildly with his hands. “A mentalist’s wet dream, because I barely have to look at you to know you’re lying. You are as transparently deceptive as Luan is transparently honest. And when I asked if you attacked Julie, what happened?”

Aiden was breathing furiously, his eyes narrowed to slits as he adopted the posture of a man being branded with a guilty stamp. Emotion clutched at me, not because I cared about the man, but because I cared about Bea, and I had no idea what was going to happen to her now.

“You worked your jaw and raised your eyebrow,” Jay finished.

Aiden stomped forward and pushed at Jay, almost knocking him over. “You’ve got it wrong! You don’t know anything!”

“I know that you did it,” said Jay confidently, dusting himself off. He didn’t appear at all ruffled that Aiden had hit him. And when Aiden looked like he was about to flee, several stocky men who worked as labourers for the circus came forward and blocked his path. He had nowhere to run. “I also know,” Jay began, pronouncing his words loudly and steadily so that everybody could hear, “that you didn’t act alone.” Now there were several shocked and surprised gasps from the crowd. I moved closer into the warmth of Jack’s body, spooked. No one else in the world made me feel safe the way he did. And what did Jay mean, Aiden hadn’t acted alone? It wasn’t long before I found out.

“Well, at least you didn’t plan the act alone. I don’t mean to insult you, but you don’t possess the intelligence, the flair, to cover up a killing, Aiden. Yes, you have the strength and indeed the fucked-up psychology to do it physically, but you don’t have the shrewd mental acumen for a cover-up.”

A hush came over the gathering, and a chill ran down my spine. I caught movement to my left and saw Julie hurrying through the crowd. In an instant, I recognised that she was trying to slip away before anyone saw. A moment later, Jay began walking towards us, calling out, “Oh, Miss Young, can I have a word?”

It was almost like a spotlight had landed on her, because she stopped dead in her tracks, and all forty-five pairs of eyes went to the beautiful red-headed gymnast. “What do you want?” she hissed, low and furious as she stared at the floor, refusing to meet Jay’s gaze. Jay walked through the gathering, and people parted to let him by. A moment later, he was right in front of Julie. He reached out and caught her chin, tilting it up to make her look at him. She reeled away from his touch, her hatred clear as day in her bright blue eyes.

“When I told you that you’re not the attacker, it was the truth. However, when I told you that you have a tell, I lied. In fact, you have two. You purse your lips when you’re telling an outright lie, but you touch your index finger to your thumb when you’re being deceptive. And when I asked you if you were the attacker, every time your body shouted your deceit. You were involved in Aiden’s crime from the start.”