Page 56 of A Game of Lies

While George reels off initials, Leo moves the crowd back. Everyone is in the courtyard now, summoned either by Miles’s shouts or the chaos that followed. Roxy’s hands are clamped to her mouth; behind her, Owen stares in disbelief. Ffion sees Pam, Jason, Aliyah. Caleb has turned up too, she notices.

Only Jessica is missing.

‘Everyone in your own rooms.’ Leo’s tone brooks no argument.

‘Is he …’ Jason looks past Leo to Miles’s studio. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Now,’ Leo says firmly. The two men lock eyes for several seconds before Jason turns reluctantly away. The others follow, peeling off as they reach their respective rooms.

Ffion’s chest is tight. The voices in the courtyard echo as though they’re coming through a tunnel.

Miles Young is dead.

Ffion has seen countless dead bodies. She’s been first on scene to dozens of assaults and traffic collisions, and more incidents of self-harm than she wants to remember.

She has neverhearda murder take place.

Ffion replays the sounds in her head; thinks about how they all ignored Miles’s shout ofWhat are you doing?andAre you threatening me?How they’d imagined Miles was listening to a recording – how they had discussed the impact the volume would have on his hearing, for heaven’s sake – and all the time …

Ffion thinks about the guttural scream that followed and imagines how desperate Miles must have felt, hoping someone would hear him calling out.

Help, help!

Did it feel like an eternity?

It was over in less than a minute.

Less than a minute, Ffion repeats to herself, and even in her head she can hear the defensiveness. They couldn’t have done anything. They couldn’t have stopped this.

Less than a minute.

It takes less than a minute to cross the courtyard, says the voice in her head. She’s glad when her phone rings, and she answers with a crisp, ‘DC Ffion Morgan.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Christine Boccacci,’ comes the voice. ‘You’re with the murder victim, I understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ffion snaps back to focus, glad of the distraction. ‘Scene’s contained, and witnesses are—’

‘Who’s the senior officer on scene?’

The DCI’s interruption leaves Ffion momentarily without words. ‘There isn’t—’ She remembers Leo. ‘Well, we’ve got DS Brady from Cheshire CID here.’

‘Ah, excellent.’ Boccacci sounds relieved. ‘Get him on the line, please – I’d like a detailed update.’

Ffion opens her mouth to protest – a detailed update was precisely what she’d been about to give – but she knows it’s pointless. She’s never chased promotion. She wants to solve crime, not unpack personnel issues, and the most interesting work is on the front line, not in an office. But as she passes her phone to Leo, with a curt, ‘SIO wants to speak to you,’ she feels a stab of resentment.

Lying on the carpet of Miles’s room is his door key, attached to a slim leather fob embossed with the number eight. It will have dropped to the floor when Leo booted open the door, Ffion realises. She leaves it where it is.

Miles’s body is slumped over a large desk brought in by the production company – Ffion has seen the other stable rooms, which each have a small sofa in place of this expansive workstation. There are two computer screens, both connected to a laptop and external hard drive. One screen is blank. Ffion recalls Caleb complaining that Miles could easily have shared the workload, had the producer not been such a control freak.

‘He’s got two editing stations,’ Caleb had said. ‘But the great Miles Young won’t let anyone sit next to him, oh no.’

The second screen shows the live feed from camp, where Ceri and Lucas are sitting by the fire pit.

‘—saw her talking to the woman with the camera,’ Lucas is saying.

The sound is uncomfortably loud. How could Miles bear it? At the top of the screen, red labels invite the user to click on different camera views: CAMP 1, CAMP 2, CAMP 3, BOYS TENT, GIRLS TENT, CONFESSION POD. The temptation to play around with it is huge – Henry isn’t with Ceri and Lucas by the fire, and Ffion would like to know where he is – but she settles for pressing the mute button with the tip of her pen. The silence that descends makes her instantly calmer.

The converted stables have the feel of upmarket university study rooms, each with compact wardrobes and small double beds. At the rear of Miles’s room, the casement window is wide open. It’s easily big enough for someone to climb through, and the stables on this side look on to the woods, meaning it would have been easy for the murderer to make off without being seen. Ffion puts her hands in her pockets as she walks around. It’s a habit she knows looks shockingly casual to an observer (she’s been reprimanded more than once by DI Malik) but it’s a foolproof way of guarding against thoughtless touching.

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