Page 12 of A Game of Lies

‘I moved house, too.’

‘Got family here? Friends?’ People moved away from Bryndare, not to it.

‘No,’ Georgina said, with such coldness that even Ffion didn’t dare try again. One thing she was certain of, though: Georgina Kent definitely had a story.

Roxy Wilde is wearing jeans and a white vest top, with an oversized cardigan she pulls around her midriff when she opens the door. Without the glossy curls and make-up she’s barely recognisable as the glamorous presenter on the inaugural episode ofExposure.

‘That was quite the plot twist last night,’ Ffion says.

‘That’s reality TV for you.’ Roxy gives a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘You never know what’s coming.’

She takes Ffion and Georgina into the kitchen, which is dominated by a vast pine table surrounded by heavy wooden chairs. In the centre is a plastic-covered tray of pastries and one of sandwiches. ‘Breakfast and lunch,’ Roxy explains. ‘They’re delivered each morning. Help yourself. There’s coffee over there, if you want some.’

Ffion doesn’t need asking twice. She slots an espresso pod into the shiny machine on the counter.

‘How’s Ceri doing? She delivers my mail,’ she adds, seeing Roxy’s questioning expression and deciding it was the easiest explanation. Ffion had never hung out with Ceri before the Rhys Lloyd murder investigation, which had uncovered a side to Ceri – and to several others in the village – Ffion had never seen. She and Ceri had toasted the trial with a swift half in Y Llew Coch – which had turned into several pints, a lock-in and a kebab on the way home – and agreed they could do worse than to do the same again some time.

‘Will she win, do you mean?’ Roxy flicks her gaze to the door. ‘Because I’m not supposed to—’

‘No, I mean, how is she? Did she take the news okay?’ Ffion lifts the plastic lid from the tray of pastries and eeny-meeny-miney-mos between a chocolate twist and apain au raisin. She lands on the twist, lets her hand hover for a second, then takes both.

‘I guess.’ Roxy tugs the cardigan tighter around her stomach.

Ffion bites into thepain au raisinand the pastry melts into her tongue. God, that’s good. Mam had wondered if Ffion was upset that Ceri hadn’t told her she was going onExposure, but Ffion hasn’t given it a second thought. They’re drinking buddies, not BFFs; adults, not stress-head teens angsting about messages left unread. Ceri’s easy company. She deflects personal questions with a snippet of gossip from her round, only occasionally touching on what’s happening in her life. ‘We broke up,’ was all she said, when Ffion had asked when she was next seeing the woman she’d met online. The unspoken boundaries suit Ffion, who has heard enough gossip from Ceri about the lives of people in Cwm Coed not to pass on any details from her own.

‘Have you texted him back, then?’ Ceri said, a few weeks after Leo had suggested dinner.

‘How did you—’ Ffion screwed her eyes shut. Bloody Seren, shouting her mouth off. ‘Your round, is it?’ she said instead. Leo Brady was off-limits.

The kitchen door opens, and Miles comes in, sporting a wide smile wholly incongruous with the day’s events. He’s wearing a bright yellow running jacket and a beanie, and he’s accompanied by a man in Gore-Tex trousers.

‘This is Owen,’ Roxy says, ‘our cameraman. Miles, the catering woman wanted paying – where’s the petty cash tin?’

‘It’s upstairs, on my chest of drawers. Make sure you get a receipt.’ Miles turns to Ffion and Georgina. ‘Well, did you see the show?’

‘Yes,’ says Ffion, just as Georgina saysNo.

‘It was trending on Twitter all evening, and the papers are all over it. Tonight’s ratings are going to be epic. It’s marvellous!’

‘Less marvellous for Ryan Francis, it seems,’ Ffion says.

Miles is instantly sombre. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘The bloke obviously couldn’t hack it.’ Owen shrugs and helps himself to apain au chocolat, scattering pastry flakes over his chest as he demolishes it.

‘Do you blame him?’ Roxy’s sharpness is a world away from the mischievous tone she adopted for last night’s programme. ‘Wouldyouwant your innermost secrets exposed on national television?’

‘Wouldn’t worry me,’ Owen says. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘You didn’t know, did you?’ Ffion looks at Roxy. ‘That’s what you were arguing with Miles about when we came yesterday. He’d just told you, and you weren’t happy about it.’

‘I told him it was cruel,’ Roxy says quietly.

Owen raises an eyebrow. ‘Still here, though, aren’t you?’

‘I’m a professional. I wouldn’t walk out halfway through a job.’

‘Wouldn’t walk out on a pay cheque, more like.’

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