‘You can’t help me,’ he said.

‘At least let me try,’ I replied. ‘Trust me, Stefan. I’m on your side. I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner but now that we have, I’m not going to let you down.’

He levelled his eyes at me. They were very gentle, a soft shade of brown. ‘Why should I trust you?’ he asked.

‘Who else is there?’ I replied.

He nodded. Then, very slowly, he took out the letter and slid it across the table towards me. ‘This is all I have,’ he said. ‘There is nothing else.’

He stood up. Before he walked away, he took all the food from the table: the crisps, the chocolate bars, even the cold hamburger. That told me as much about life in prison as anything that had happened since I had arrived. Then, without another word, he left.

*

I couldn’t drive.

Andreas took over behind the wheel. He hadn’t asked me what had happened inside the prison. He could see that I was too upset to talk about it. We drove a few miles through the Norfolk countryside, which became just a little softer and more welcoming when it became the Suffolk countryside, and then stopped for a late lunch at a pub, the Plough and Stars, just south of Thetford. Andreas ordered sandwiches but I wasn’t hungry. The food made me think of the horrible, cold hamburger that Stefan had taken back to his cell. Eight years of his life!

‘Susan, do you want to talk to me about it?’ Andreas asked, eventually.

The pub might have been a cheerful place on a Friday night. It had flagstones and a wood-burning stove and old-fashioned wooden tables. But we were almost alone. The man behind the bar looked fed up.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just feel so angry with myself about the way I went careering into all this. First of all, I abandoned you. But seeing that poor man just now, stuck in that place … ’

‘You know he’s innocent.’

‘I’ve known that all along, Andreas. I just never thought about it from his point of view.’

‘So what happens next?’

‘I don’t know. That’s the worst of it. I just don’t know what else I can do.’

I remember the moment exactly. We were sitting in a corner. The barman was wiping a glass. The only other customer – a man with a dog – got up and left. A wind had sprung up and I could see the pub sign swinging outside.

‘I know who killed Frank Parris,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry?’ Andreas stared at me. ‘I thought you just said—’

‘I know what I said. But I’ve worked it out!’

‘Did Stefan tell you?’

‘No. He told me more than he meant to. But it wasn’t him. It all just came together.’

Andreas stared at me. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

‘Yes. Of course. But not yet. I need to think.’

‘Really?’

‘Give me a little time.’

He smiled at me. ‘You’re worse than Alan Conway!’

We didn’t eat the sandwiches. We got back in the car and drove off.

The Killer

We didn’t go back to Woodbridge. We drove straight on to Heath House in Westleton. We walked up to the front door together and I more or less leaned on the doorbell, daring the occupants not to answer. After about thirty seconds, Martin Williams opened the door. He looked at Andreas with suspicion and at me with a mixture of surprise and anger. It had, after all, only been one day since he had told me never to come back.

‘You can’t come in,’ he said.

‘Are you busy?’

‘Joanne doesn’t want to see you. Nor do I. We told you that the last time you were here.’

‘I know who killed Frank Parris,’ I said. ‘My friend, Andreas, also knows. You can hear it from me or from the police. It’s your choice.’

He stared at me, making his calculations. He wasn’t a big man but he had been leaning diagonally across the door frame, blocking my way. For once he wasn’t wearing overalls. He was dressed in jeans, leather boots and a paisley shirt open at the neck, as if he was about to go out line dancing. He straightened up. ‘You’re talking rubbish,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn’t want you to make a fool of yourself. You can have five minutes.’

Joanne Williams came down the stairs as we entered the kitchen. She was furious to see me and didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t even look at me. ‘What’s she doing here?’ she asked Martin. ‘You promised me she wouldn’t come back!’

‘Hello, Joanne,’ I said.

‘Susan claims she knows who killed Frank,’ Martin told her. ‘I thought it best to hear what she has to say.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not interested.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ I said. ‘Maybe I should repeat what I just told your husband – if you won’t talk to me, I’ll go straight to the police. Which is it to be?’

I saw them exchange glances and knew that they needed no further convincing.

‘Come in here,’ Martin said.

We went back into the kitchen. It was a room I was beginning to know too well. Andreas and I sat on one side of the table, Joanne and Martin on the other. We glared at each other across the pine surface. It was like a council of war.

‘This won’t take very long,’ I said. ‘This is the third time I’ve come to see you and you’ll be glad to hear it’s going to be the last. As I explained at the start, I was asked by Lawrence and Pauline Treherne to look into their daughter’s disappearance and to find out if there was any connection with the murder of Frank Parris eight years ago. The first time I came here, I won’t say you lied to me, but let’s just say that you were rather flexible with the truth. It didn’t take me very long to discover that the two of you – and only the two of you – had a good reason to kill Frank Parris. The collapse of his advertising business in Australia meant that he needed money and so he was going to force you to sell Heath House, which had been left to you, fifty-fifty, by your mother. It was your family home and if he died, assuming he hadn’t left it to anyone else in his will, you’d get to keep it.’

‘He left it to Joanne, actually,’ Martin said.

‘Did he really?’ Andreas and I both looked amazed.

‘That’s what he always told us.’

I shook my head in disbelief. ‘That’s what I just don’t understand, Martin,’ I said. ‘Why are you telling me that? I’d have thought that’s the last thing you’d want me to know. It just makes you look more suspicious. If you were left the house in his will, then you definitely had a motive for the murder, but here you are, blurting it out without a second thought. It’s like when I came here yesterday and instead of denying everything like any sane man would, you spelled out exactly the reason why you might have committed the murder. Why have you even allowed me in now when you told me you never wanted to see me again?’

‘Because I want to put these ridiculous accusations to bed.’

‘That’s not what it sounds like to me. Is that what it sounds like to you, Andreas?’

‘No,’ Andreas agreed. ‘I’d say he’s stirring it up.’

Joanne was watching Martin so intently that she might not actually have been breathing. I waited for him to speak.

‘I think you should leave,’ he said.

‘It’s too late for that,’ I replied. ‘I know the truth.’

‘You can make any accusations you like. But you can’t prove anything.’

‘As a matter of fact, I can, Martin,’ I countered. ‘I can prove one hundred per cent, without any doubt at all, that you did not kill Frank. How can I do that? Because as I told you at the door, I know the identity of the real killer and it wasn’t you.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’ Joanne demanded.

‘Because I’m fed up with both of you and I want to put an end to your little charade once and for all. From the moment I first walked into this house you’ve been pissing me around, play-acting—’

‘I don’t know what you mean!’ Martin interrupted.

‘Don’t you, Martin? Well, I’ll tell you. Let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that you found yourself trapped in a generally shit marriage with a wife who bullied you and who made you feel small about yourself—’

‘How dare you!’ Joanne sat bolt upright, her cheeks darkening.

‘That’s more or less what my sister, Katie, told me. She had dinner with you once and she described you, Joanne – I think the word “ball-breaker” was the one she used. She said you walked all over Martin like a doormat. She wondered how the two of you even managed to stay together.’

‘Well, that’s her view … ’ Martin muttered.

‘It’s certainly not true now, is it! Things seem to have changed. You’re definitely the one in control, Martin. Why is that, I wonder? Maybe it’s because Joanne’s come to the conclusion that it was you who killed Frank and that actually you’re quite a dangerous character. And maybe, just maybe, you’ve encouraged her to believe it because it gives you a bit of power and freedom in this house.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Is it? It would explain why you told me about the will just now – and why you gave me such a rubbish answer when I challenged you about Frank seeing the marquee. From the very moment you and I met, you’ve been wanting me to suspect you!’