‘Nope.’ Ffion swipes away quickly. A little too quickly.
‘Not local, then?’
‘What?’
‘If you don’t know her’ – Leo finds himself leaning across the table, his head low, in an effort to get Ffion’s attention – ‘she’s probably from out of town. Right?’
Finally, Ffion looks up. ‘Sorry. Yes.’
‘So if the Tech team pull the metadata on all these posts we can cross-reference them with the data from Rhys’s Apple Watch, to see what he was doing when his heart-rate went loopy.’
‘Hoping to see Professor Plum in the drawing room with the candlestick?’
‘You never know.’
Leo scrolls through the Instagram feed on his own phone, looking for more pictures of the mystery woman in black. There are a couple of Yasmin and Rhys Lloyd on their own deck, presumably taken before the party – Lloyd looks significantly less dishevelled. Behind them, the lake is a dark mass, the outline of black clouds heavy overhead. Perhaps it’s only because Leo knows that by the end of the evening Rhys will be in the water behind him that even the twinkly lights strung along the balustrade seem full of foreboding.
Rhys’s twin daughters are both on Instagram, their grids carefully curated and heavily edited. Tabby Lloyd’s most recent post is a poignant photo of her father’s empty study, his chair at an angle as though he’s just left the room for a moment. Leo stares at the image, remembering the glossy photographs he looked at this morning and trying to pinpoint what looks different. He wishes he hadn’t left the magazine at home. ‘Are there any photos of Lloyd’s office from before he died?’
‘Yasmin showcased the whole place on her grid, back in the summer. Hang on.’ Ffion scrolls through the images, and the Lloyds’ life spools backwards, in tiny filtered squares. New Year’s Eve, then Christmas, then London life. Half-term holiday at The Shore, then London again, then summer at The Shore. Ffion stops. ‘Here.’
Leo holds his phone next to Ffion’s, and they bend over the near-identical images of Rhys Lloyd’s study. The room is small – essentially a wide landing between the master bedroom overlooking the lake, and the two smaller rooms at the front of the lodge. In addition to the desk – tidier in Yasmin’s photo than in her daughter’s – there’s a small armchair, a music stand and a potted plant. Above the desk is a shelf on which stand a number of trophies and awards.
Leo counts the awards visible in Yasmin’s photograph, then does the same for Tabby’s. He looks at Ffion, and the first piece of the puzzle falls neatly into place.
‘There’s one missing.’
TWELVE
NEW YEAR’S EVE | 7 P.M. | MIA
Mia walks back to The Shore, barely an hour after she left. She’s been there all day, setting out canapés and being bossed about by Blythe. Who has a project plan for a party, for fuck’s sake? A few bowls of crisps, some banging tunes, bring your own booze, and job’s a good ’un.
Not at The Shore. At The Shore, it’s trays of sushi and tiny Yorkshire puddings hiding a curl of rare roast beef. It’s row after row of foil-topped bottles, and one of those pyramids of glasses Mia’s only ever seen in films. It’s a marquee – the sort you find at posh hotel weddings – with deckchairs and parasols and a sand-coloured carpet because Jonty drew the line at actual sand. Crazy money. Crazy people.
Mostly.
Mia didn’t take the job as cleaner （and now, apparently, waitress） because of a man, but that’s why she’s stayed. That’s why she’s put up with the condescension and the casual insults, and the feeling that she’s invisible unless she’s done something wrong. And she knows how insane it is, and what people would say, and God, doesn’t she know how wildly unsuitable he is . . .
But.
Her heart soars as she picks her way over the rocks in trainers she’ll change out of before she reaches The Shore. In her hand she swings a pair of six-inch heels and okay, they’re not the Loubo-whatsits Blythe bangs on about, but they make Mia’s legs look as though they go on forever. The cheek of that woman, suggesting Mia might wear a waitress uniform! Mia has spent six months wearing a cleaning tabard for stolen trysts with her lover, and tonight she intends to wow him. They managed the briefest of encounters earlier today, and she’s hopeful that tonight, when everyone is distracted by the party, they will be able to sneak off.
He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, she knows that. A bit full of himself maybe; a bit flash. But underneath all that, away from his set, he’s lovely. Mia smiles to herself. After the party, he’s going to leave. He’s promised her. He’s going to walk away from all these trappings of success, and be with her. ‘Who needs money, when you’ve got love?’ he always says, and Mia knows he means it.