Page 77 of A Game of Lies

‘Busy.’

‘When’s the post-mortem happening?’

‘Tomorrow.’ George’s voice is muffled, as though her phone is clamped between shoulder and ear. ‘Izzy Weaver’s doing it.’ Leo recognises the name – it’s the same pathologist who did the autopsy on Rhys Lloyd. ‘We’ve had forensics back on the stones used to smash the cameras, by the way. There’s DNA on the stones.’

‘And?’

‘It’s not Ryan’s.’

Leo lets this sit awhile. Ryan didn’t smash the cameras. In some ways, this isn’t surprising – Leo is increasingly feeling that Ryan has been in no fit state to carry out meticulously thought-out plans – but it raises more questions than it answers. If Ryan didn’t smash the cameras, who did? The same person who murdered Miles?

‘Has it been run through PNC?’ he asks.

‘Yes, no match.’

Which means whoever smashed the cameras doesn’t have a criminal record. Leo is reminded of the list he requested from Miles’s production office, of people who applied to be onExposure. Might one of them be responsible?

‘The DCI says everyone but scene watch can stand down,’ George says. ‘On again at zero eight hundred hours tomorrow, when I’ll be back with you and Ffion.’

Leo finishes the call. ‘George can speak to Caleb Northcote and Jessica Francis first thing tomorrow,’ he tells Ffion. ‘I’ll interview Roxy Wilde and Owen Havard.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Ffion says.

They lock eyes for a second and Leo feels a surge of heat. He fights the impulse to answer her question in an extremely unprofessional way. ‘See if Pam Butler’s and Jason Shenton’s alibis check out,’ he says instead. ‘And get that box of secrets open – find out who had the most to lose.’

Out of the seven people with uncorroborated alibis, Ceri Jones is the only one who still has a secret in that box.

Is it big enough to kill for?

TWENTY-EIGHT

JASON | DAY THREE OFEXPOSURE

You have to be fit to be a firefighter, and Jason Shenton’s the fittest on his watch. He’s at the station gym every day, switching between legs, arms and cardio. When the advert forExposurecame out, so many of Jason’s mates sent him the link he ended up posting on Facebook to sayYes, I’ve applied!He wasn’t even surprised when he got picked – it felt as though it was meant to be. Jason was fit and strong, and he was going to boss this survival show.

So when Roxy made that announcement on the first night, Jason’s first reaction was one of disappointment. He was gutted, to be honest. All the extra training he’d done, all the egg-white omelettes and protein shakes. That bloody fake tan Kat put on him, so he’d look buff for the cameras.

‘Are you saying I’m not buff already?’

‘Even more buff.’ Kat had grinned, rubbing on lotion. They’d got distracted then, and Kat had ended up with a fair amount of fake tan on her, too …

A second after Roxy’s announcement, it hit him.

‘You fuckingwhat?’ he said. Even then, Jason didn’t realise the implications. He only knew that they’d all been lied to, and there’s nothing Jason hates more than a liar. The cameraman was grinning like an ape, and Jason ran at him, not thinking about anything except wiping that smile off Owen’s stupid face.

The passing days have served only to fuel his rage. Jason knows which secret of his they want to expose, of course. It took him a while to figure it out, which might sound ridiculous, except that marrying Addison feels like something someone else did. It was such a long time ago, when he was a different person.Katis his wife. Not his second wife, not a bigamous wife, just his wife. And he adores her with a fierceness that surprises even him.

A bigamist. Fucking hell. It makes him sound like a total bastard – a complete player. The stupid thing is, Jason’s literally only had three girlfriends in his life. And he married two of them. If his secret’s exposed, he could go to prison. Worse than that, he’ll lose Kat and maybe even the girls. He can’t let that happen.

By the third day ofExposure, Jason comes up with a plan. The contestants have been pitted against each other, tasked with uncovering each other’s secrets. The questions are ramping up, every conversation a potential trap.

‘I reckon Lucas’s secret is to do with a woman,’ Aliyah whispered to Jason over breakfast. ‘He gets well flustered if you ask him about relationships.’

As a result, everyone’s pulling up the drawbridge, scared of giving something away. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone – except Jason – that there’s another way to play the lying game …

‘I gotta say, man, the stress is really getting to me,’ Jason tells Henry, during what has quickly become a regular heart-to-heart in the hot tub. ‘I’m thinking of ’fessing up and getting it over. Ripping the plaster off, you know?’

Henry considers this. ‘I guess it depends on what you’re likely to face as a result.’

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