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‘Well, yes, we don’t know the timing exactly, but there is no doubt that this blood is Mr MacFarlane’s,’ Mr Wynnstay replies. ‘There is no doubt that he was there and that he sustained a serious injury from this spade.’

‘Butwhenis the question, Mr Wynnstay. When did this injury occur, and why? And was this injury enough to cause death?’

My eyes go heavy as the questions roll on and the objections from the prosecution continue. Everything about me is so heavy, now. I feel waterlogged, as if I’ve sunk to the bottom of a deep pool.

You know, Ty, I stuck to the story we agreed on for longer than was good for me. I didn’t tell the police you were there with me until they got Mr Wynnstay and his team on board. Up until that point, I insisted that you never returned. But it was hard to stick with one story when your blood told a different one.

Mr Wynnstay and his team changed a lot of things. When they arrived, I was forced to admit that you came with me after all, up the Great Northern together in the hire car. And didn’t the reporters go nuts about that development? Everybody loved it when they discovered that I’d lied.

After that, my story veered closer to the truth: you and I had been trying to get to know each other again, away from prying eyes and media attention; we believed we loved each other and that was why we agreed to let each other go. When I am on the witness stand, I will be asked about our final conversation—how we agreed you would disappearinto the land, how it was the ultimate sacrifice for us both.

Someone coughs in the gallery, and I jolt back to the present. Mr Wynnstay is leaving the stand. I clasp my hands in my lap as I watch him go. It won’t be long before it’s my turn to talk.