Jack was her twenty-one-year-old son, now in his first year at Bristol University. Daisy, nineteen, was on her gap year, helping refugees in northern France.

It’s funny how close the two of us have always been, even though we’re worlds apart. That was true even when we were children. We grew up together in a very ordinary house in north London. We went to the same school. We swapped clothes and made jokes about each other’s boyfriends. But while Katie was completely happy, dreaming of the day when she would have a home and a lifestyle almost identical to the one our parents had foisted on us, I was escaping to my local library and my dreams were of a very different nature. I would join a gang at Jamaica Inn, preying on the wretched sailors who came too close. I would fall madly in love with Edward Rochester, but in my version of the story I would save him from the flames. I would travel to the lost city of K?r and find immortality in the Pillar of Fire. We were the complete opposite of Cecily and Lisa Treherne, who had been two sisters at war, actually throwing knives. Katie and I had nothing in common except our fondness for each other and that had lasted throughout our lives.

There were times when I wished I was more like her. Katie’s life was a model of comfort and orderliness: the two children now entering their twenties, the accountant husband who spent three nights a week in London but who was still devoted to her after a marriage that had lasted a quarter of a century, the part-time job, the close circle of friends, the community work … all the rest of it. I often thought of her as a smarter, more grown-up version of myself.

And yet I couldn’t have lived in a house like this. I wouldn’t even have bought a house that had a name. Numbers were good enough for the likes of me.

Three Chimneys was in a quiet crescent just outside Woodbridge and yes, it did have three chimneys, even if they were completely useless because all the fireplaces had been filled in with those gas-effect fires. Looking at all the polished surfaces, the sliding glass doors, the thick-pile carpets and tasteful art, I knew that if I had lived here I would have felt trapped, but Katie didn’t seem to mind. She was a mother, a wife, a housewife. She liked to be defined.

Not that I would hold up my own, chaotic lifestyle as anything to be envied. My early love of books hadn’t taken me to the places of my imagination. It had taken me into … books. I’d started as a junior editor at HarperCollins, then commissioning editor, then editorial director and finally Head of Fiction at a company that had, literally, gone up in flames. The publishing industry is full of idealists, people who love what they do, which is why so many of us are badly paid. I was lucky to buy a two-bedroom flat in Crouch End before prices went insane but I’d never paid off the mortgage, not until the day I sold it. I’d had plenty of relationships but they’d never lasted because I didn’t want them to. At least Andreas had changed that.

So there we were. Two sisters looking at each other across a divide that had widened as we had grown older, far apart and yet close. We made judgements about each other, but perhaps those judgements told us more about ourselves.

‘Do you think it’s sensible, getting yourself involved in another murder enquiry?’ Katie asked.

‘I’ll be more careful this time.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Anyway, I’m beginning to think the whole thing may be a waste of time.’

She was surprised. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because the more questions I ask, the more likely it seems to me that it was Stefan Codrescu who killed Frank Parris. All the evidence is stacked up against him, and as far as I can see there were only two people who had any motive, and I’m not even sure what that motive was.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Oh … a couple who live in Westleton. Joanne and Martin. She was Frank’s sister.’

Katie looked surprised. ‘Joanne and Martin Williams?’

‘Do you know them?’

‘I met them once. I can’t say I really liked them.’ That was unusual. Katie always thought the best of everyone.

‘Why was that?’ I asked.

‘It was nothing personal. They just weren’t my type.’ She saw that I wanted more and continued, reluctantly. ‘She was a real ball-breaker. She dominated the table … never let anyone get a word in edgeways. And he was a complete doormat. She walked all over him. She seemed to revel in it.’

That puzzled me. ‘When did you last see them?’ I asked.

‘Oh … it was ages ago. Maybe even before the murder. They were at a dinner and I only remember them because I joked about it afterwards. I didn’t understand how two people like that could possibly stay married to each other!’

‘And she was the one in control?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘It’s strange because I saw them this morning and if anything, I’d say it was the other way round.’ I put them out of my mind. ‘It has to be Stefan,’ I said. ‘I mean … blood on the pillow, blood in the shower, money under the mattress. He was even seen going into the room!’

‘In that case, what happened to Cecily Treherne?’

‘It could just be a coincidence. She could have fallen into the river. She could have gone for a swim and drowned. According to her sister, the marriage wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be and she could have run off with somebody else.’ Even as I said that, I knew it was impossible. She wouldn’t have left her daughter behind.

‘Will they still pay you if you don’t get a result?’

That was something I hadn’t considered. I reached for my cigarettes. ‘Do you mind if I step outside? I want one of these.’

Katie gave me a sideways look. ‘You said you were thinking of giving up.’

‘I did think about it.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I decided not to.’

She passed me an ashtray. She’d known I was going to use it. Then she put a percolator of coffee, milk and two mugs on a tray and – unusually for her – two tumblers of whisky. ‘Will you join me?’ she asked.

‘Just a small one. I’m driving.’

We went outside and sat at a wooden table beside the fish pond. It was a warm evening with a half-moon and a few stars. The garden looked beautiful, of course, filled with plants that Katie got at half price from her work. She had recently bought a statue of a leaping frog with water gushing out of its mouth and the sound of it only made the silence around us more profound. I noticed that one bush had died. It was very prominent, in a circular bed in the middle of the lawn. I wouldn’t have been able to put a name to it – it was round and tightly cropped – but it was completely brown. For some reason, it troubled me. I would have thought Katie would have got rid of it the moment the first leaves began to droop.

I lit a cigarette and smoked peacefully, listening to the falling water.

‘You are going back to Crete?’ she asked.

Katie and I had no secrets from each other. We had talked about the hotel, the problems, my misgivings, while we ate.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t even know where I am with Andreas. Before we left England, he asked me to marry him.’

‘You told me. You turned him down.’

‘I said yes. But later on we both changed our minds. We didn’t think marriage would suit us. I made him take the ring back. It was much more than he could afford anyway and we need every penny we can get.’ I examined her over the tip of my cigarette. ‘Sometimes I wish I could be more like you.’

‘You know that’s not true.’ She looked away.

‘No. I mean it. There are times when I just feel completely worn out. I don’t know if I want to be with Andreas any more. I don’t know what I want.’

‘Listen to me, Susan. Forget this stupid murder investigation.’ She had turned back and her eyes locked on to mine. ‘Go back to Greece. You don’t belong in England any more. Go back to Andreas.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because he’s a good man and you don’t want to lose him. Honestly, I was so glad when you met him. I was the one who introduced you!’

‘That’s not true. It was Melissa … ’

‘Well, you’d never have met him if I hadn’t sent Jack and Daisy to Woodbridge School. Trust me. When you’ve got someone like Andreas in your life, you should count your blessings. But that’s how you’ve always been. You’re always thinking ahead, planning for the future. You never actually sit back and enjoy what you have.’

I was puzzled. I thought she was trying to tell me something quite different but she wasn’t putting it into words. ‘Katie, is everything all right?’ I asked.

She sighed. ‘Do you ever think about your age?’ she asked.

‘I try not to. Don’t forget I’m two years older than you.’

‘I know. But there are times when I can’t stop myself.’ She tried to make light of it. ‘I hate the idea of getting old. I’m getting to the age when I look around me at this house, this garden and I think to myself … is this it?’

‘But it’s everything you ever wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I suppose so. I’ve been lucky.’