Page 57 of A Game of Lies

With the toe of her shoe, Ffion pushes open the shower room door. As she does so, it occurs to her that the open window could be a bluff, to make them think the killer ran off into the woods. Or opened the window but didn’t have time to climb out, and instead hid in the only place possible …

She’s both relieved and disappointed to find the tiny bathroom empty. The glass shower cubicle is bone-dry, and Ffion wonders if Miles showered after his morning run, or pulled on clothes and got straight back to work. She grimaces at the thought. Now that she thinks about it, there’s a tang of sweat in the air, like a locker room after rugby.

She moves to stand next to the body.

Miles’s arms hang by his side, his chest on the desk and his head to one side. He could be stealing forty winks, except that his eyes are open. They bulge disconcertingly in Ffion’s direction. He’s wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt which reveals angry red marks around his neck.

‘Strangled,’ Leo says from the door.

‘Looks that way.’ Ffion gestures to the computer screen, where the now silent Lucas and Ceri have been joined by Henry. ‘We’d better bring them down.’

Leo shakes his head. ‘Everyone stays where they are till the dog gets here.’

‘But—’

‘DCI Boccacci’s asked me to take temporary command.’

The subtext is clear –I’m the boss around here– and Ffion thinks it’s just as well she fucked up the relationship side of things, because how could you hope to have an equal partnership when one half outranks the other?

‘George has taken an initial account from everyone staying in the stables, and they all say they were in their rooms at the time of the murder,’ Leo says. ‘That’s Jason, Pam and Aliyah.’

‘No Jessica,’ Ffion says.

Leo makes a note. ‘Can you speak to the three in the farmhouse? Roxy, Owen and Caleb. There shouldn’t be anyone else in the house – uniform have got an outer cordon on at the gate.’

Leo is much more at ease giving orders than Ffion is taking them, which confirms to Ffion that what happened – or almost happened – between them is firmly in the past. Leo sees Ffion as a colleague, nothing more.

‘Sure thing,’ she says, with a lightness she doesn’t feel. ‘Sarge.’

It seems surreal that less than an hour ago Ffion was leaning against the kitchen counter, wondering whether to have a cigarette or another coffee, or both. She was frustrated by the inevitably slow pace of a missing person enquiry; now they’ve hurtled into a murder case with enough speed to cause whiplash.

She finds Owen in the drawing room, looking out of the bay window at the blue and white tape fluttering across the entrance to the drive.

‘I’ve let the office know,’ he says.

‘You were specifically told not to make any calls.’

‘Someone needs to pick up the editing, otherwise—’

‘Editing?’

‘Of the show.’ He speaks to her as though she’s a few cards short of a deck.

Ffion stares at him. ‘Miles has been murdered.’

‘Exactly. So someone else needs to step up.’ He flexes his knuckles. ‘I’ve asked the office to send a freelance cameraman to replace me. I’ll take over from Miles.’

Ffion almost feels sorry for him.

‘Don’t worry – I know what I’m doing. I started on low-budget shorts, where you’re producer, director, camera … the works. I’ll pick up as editor and producer now; the viewers won’t even see a difference.’

‘Mate, it’s game over.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Finito. No moreExposure. This is a murder investigation.’

‘No!’ It’s almost a cry. ‘You can’t just cancel the show.’

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