Page 58 of A Game of Lies

‘I can and I have,’ Ffion says. ‘From now on, the only cameras around the place will belong to CSI.’

‘Thank God for that.’ Roxy flushes. ‘How awful, I’m sorry. I don’t mean I’m glad Miles is dead, of course not, but I don’t think I could have done another week ofExposure.’

‘It wouldn’t have lasted a week, would it? There were only three contestants left.’

Ffion’s perched on the windowsill of Roxy’s room, which is next to Miles’s at the back of the house, overlooking the courtyard. Roxy is sitting on the cream throw which drapes the end of her bed. Sage-green panelling runs around the lower half of the room. There are four bedrooms in the farmhouse, all as large as this one, into which Ffion could probably fit the entire ground floor of her rented cottage. On a clothes rail by the door hang several identical sets of Roxy’s presenting uniform.

‘Miles had it all planned out.’ Roxy takes in Ffion’s curious look. ‘You didn’t think the evictions were random, did you?’

‘Are you saying the public vote is irrelevant?’

‘Miles uses—’ She stops. ‘Used it as a guide to see who people liked, but the final say was his. Jason was always going to be first out, for example.’

‘Why Jason?’

‘Bigamy.’ Roxy shrugs, as though it’s self-evident. ‘Juicy enough to keep people watching, get the media hyped up. If one of the contestants hadn’t exposed him, Miles would have put Jason in the pod. He had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was passing stuff to the contestants through the security guard. Manipulating them, you know?’

Poor Jason, Ffion thinks, remembering his desperate attempts to get his wife to take his calls. No wonder he took a swing at Miles in the kitchen.

‘Did you hear Miles shout for help?’ she asks Roxy, but the presenter shakes her head.

‘I was here, getting changed. I had music playing.’

‘What were you listening to?’

Roxy pauses. ‘ABBA, I think.’ She gives an awkward laugh. ‘Tragic, I know, but it helps me get in the zone.’

Caleb doesn’t officially have a room at Carreg Plas. He lives at The Shore, the resort on the edge of the lake, and cycles up each day – Ffion’s seen him pushing his bike up the steep bits. But she also knows, from Seren, that Caleb has appropriated the empty bedroom next to Owen’s, across the landing from Roxy’s. She knocks on the door.

Eighteen-year-olds possess an uncanny ability to look a variety of ages, Ffion has found. Seren barely looks twelve when she’s dripping cereal milk on her pyjamas and watching morning cartoons, yet transforms into a woman in her twenties with a lick of mascara and fifty quid’s worth of Shein.

Today, Caleb looks like a kid. A scared kid. His window looks down on to the valley, where the midday light casts a silvery sheen across Llyn Drych. On the far side of the lake lies The Shore, and the lakeside lodge owned by Caleb’s mum, where Ffion imagines Caleb would like to be right now.

‘What’s happening?’ he asks. He’s been crying, although Ffion knows he’d deny it.

‘A murder investigation,’ she says.

Caleb chews on his bottom lip.

‘How long have you been in your room?’

‘Since the other detective told me to come here.’

‘Where were you before that?’

‘On my way up to camp with the day’s rations.’

‘I thought you’d been fired.’

‘I was, till he realised there was no one to give the shit jobs to.’ Caleb exhales in a sharphuh. ‘No apology of course, justget up to camp, like he’s leader of the fucking universe.’ He stops, his expression suddenly wary, as though he’s realised bad-mouthing a recently murdered boss is perhaps not the smartest idea.

‘Did anyone see you heading up to camp this morning?’

‘Is this an interview?’

There’s a long pause. ‘No,’ Ffion says eventually. Caleb’s an adult, but only just. And he’s not a suspect, surely? Because that would really put the kibosh on Seren’s A-level prep.

* * *

---