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T ime seemed to slow to a crawl as the door continued to swing open, until it was meeting its own hinges at a right angle.

A hand came into view then, pressed against its other side, pushing it. A woman’s hand. Deliberate but tentative. Attached to an arm, the sleeve of a striped shirt. A familiar face. Short blonde hair. Eyes wide, searching, landing on Emily.

Tall Blonde Woman was here , inside, standing just feet away.

Emily blinked and time seemed to whoosh forward at hyper-speed, moments passing like missed opportunities while she stayed stock-still but her mind raced. She should turn and run out the front door, she thought. Or run towards her with her arms out, to push her back through the door and onto the ground so Emily could get the connecting door closed before she got to her feet again. Why wasn’t it locked already? What should she say? What are you doing here? Get the fuck out? Should she say anything? This woman was with Ben. She had broken in. Maybe Emily should just scream, but who would hear her? What she actually did was nothing, paralysed by inaction.

The woman raised both hands, fingers splayed, as if to say, Please, don’t shoot .

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s OK. I’m Jean.’

The name didn’t mean anything to Emily.

The other woman’s focus moved to the Olympus. ‘Did you listen to it yet?’ Back up to meet Emily’s eye. ‘Do you know who I am?’

Listen to what? Emily asked in her mind before remembering what she’d been doing before the door began to open.

She’d been listening to the recording Ben had made on Mark’s Olympus.

Didn’t you get my message? That was what he’d spat at her, down on the beach. It had sounded like a threat and it had made her feel afraid. But what if he’d been asking about the recording? What if she’d mistaken desperation for intimidation?

And if she had and that was what it was, then what was this ?

‘I knew Kate,’ Jean said. ‘I was trying to help her. And before that, get her to help me. I was there that night. The night of the fire. I need to tell you what I know. I’ve been trying to, but—’

‘What are you doing here?’ Emily said, finally finding her voice. ‘ How are you here? That door was locked. I locked it. I know I did.’

‘I came in here earlier,’ Jean said, keeping her voice infuriatingly even, gentle, calm. As if she feared she was dealing with a wild animal, when she was the threat. ‘After we tried to talk to you on the beach. Ben gave me his keys and I snuck in while he tried to keep Grace distracted. After your reaction, we figured you hadn’t found the Olympus. I came in here to look for it, to check. It was here, in your bag. I’m sorry for going into your things, but—’

‘That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here,’ Emily shouted, louder than she’d been expecting herself.

When Jean continued, she spoke faster.

‘I put it out on the counter so you’d see it when you came in. But then I saw Grace coming up the steps. Delivering something. I had only seconds. I opened this door’ – she jerked a thumb behind her – ‘and found the one on the other side already unlocked.’

When Emily looked over Jean’s shoulder now, she saw a dark room beyond. A bedroom, it looked like. Its other door, the one that presumably led to a hallway, was closed.

‘I’ve been hiding in the main house,’ Jean said, ‘in that guest room, all evening. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t risk leaving via the main house. If Jack sees me—’

‘Jack isn’t here,’ Emily said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Where?’

‘To the hotel. To talk to Ben.’

Jean dropped her hands to her sides. ‘Then we mightn’t have much time.’

‘You were on my flight,’ Emily said. ‘Flights.’

‘Was I?’ She looked surprised.

Emily nodded. ‘I saw you.’

‘That must have just been the best route anyone got when they booked last minute. I only booked my flights Monday evening, after I found out that this was happening. That you were coming here. But I didn’t know it was you . I had no name or anything. I only knew that they’d hired someone and that the interviews were going to start.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘Well … from Ben.’ Jean said this as if it were obvious.

‘Are you and he …?’

She shook her head. ‘No. We’re just helping each other out. Joining forces against a common enemy, you could say. Making up for mistakes we made in the past. If I’d tried to expose Jack earlier, Kate might still be alive. She might have got away. And look, I know how Ben can come across, especially when he’s worked up. He said he tried to talk to you when you were walking around the town, but that you ran off? He didn’t mean to scare you. He was actually trying not to do that. He was waiting for the right moment, making sure that you two were really alone, that Jack wasn’t around, and … Well, I guess it didn’t go to plan. And then you clearly didn’t want to talk to us on the beach, and we didn’t want to make a scene – we knew that if Jack was looking out a window up at the house, he might see us. And then when he did appear, I couldn’t risk getting any closer to him. He doesn’t know I’m here. But you should know: you don’t need to be afraid of us. We’re the good guys.’

Emily didn’t know if she believed this.

‘Ruth, Jack’s sister, told me Ben was … That he had done things. To women. And that he was forcing Jack to keep his secrets.’

‘And who told her that?’ Jean shook her head. ‘Everyone thinks Jack is a great cyclist and a great speaker and a great businessman, but you know what he’s really good at? What his actual talent is? Storytelling . He doesn’t just lie. He builds worlds. He makes you doubt reality. He’s doing it right now, I bet. With you. Which is why I need to tell you what I know. And then you’ll have that, and you have Ben’s story’ – Jean nodded at the Olympus – ‘and hopefully that’ll be enough to counter Jack’s lies.’

‘Counter them how?’ Emily asked. ‘And where? I don’t understand.’

‘Can we sit down?’

Jean took a seat on the couch. Emily pulled out one of the stools at the breakfast bar, but remained standing.

‘A few weeks before Kate died,’ Jean began, ‘I sent Ben a message. I’d been approached by an Italian sports journalist who was doing a piece about sexism in cycling. She didn’t know anything about Jack, but I thought, you know what? I’m going to tell her. Everything. What happened to me, what I saw, what I know was covered up. Fuck the shit they made me sign and fuck their hush money. I was ready and I was prepared. But what I didn’t want was for Kate to read about it in a paper or see it online.’

‘You were friends?’

‘She didn’t know me at all. We met once, at some event, for a second. But I knew this was her husband. And I knew Jack, so I thought, She has absolutely no clue . This will come as a complete shock. I wanted to warn her, somehow. So I got on to Ben to see if he could connect us. We met up for a drink – this isn’t the kind of thing you say over the phone – and we had a few, and we got talking about back then, and eventually it came out: Ben has his own stories about Jack. And he decided that he was done keeping quiet, too.’

‘So you both went to Kate?’

Jean shook her head. ‘Kate didn’t like Ben. They had some – brief – history, and they were friends for a while, but since she and Jack had got together, she’d avoided him like the plague. We figured Jack was feeding her lies – and, based on what his sister said to you, we were absolutely right. So it had to be me. I tried to approach her, a couple of times, but it went about as well as our attempts here, to approach you.’

Emily had a flash of Ben’s reflection in the window of the café on the square, the blur of his figure standing with his back to the shore on the beach. Him grabbing her arm, on the sand. Looking furious, she’d thought at the time.

But in hindsight, it could have been panicked desperation.

‘She didn’t want to listen, naturally,’ Jean said. ‘And she had a bruise above her eye. I know it sounds fucking idiotic now, but it didn’t occur to me that Jack might be that man at home , too.’

Emily tried to imagine Jack – Jack who’d cried in front of her, who’d talked to her about sunsets in Seaside, who less than an hour ago had told her that what mattered to him was her feeling safe – hurting the woman she’d watched smiling and laughing in the Sunrise clips she’d found online, the woman who’d loved him, who’d married him. She was about as successful as she’d been on the first day, when she’d tried to imagine him killing her.

‘And then,’ Jean said, ‘we fucked up. When I’d approached Kate, she could always walk away – and she did. I thought, how do I force her to listen to me? I can’t send her something, Jack could see it. She’s not going to stay on the line if I call. But what if I went to her home? Their place was out in the middle of nowhere, so it’d be private, too. All we needed to do was get rid of Jack. So Ben arranged to meet him for a pint and I went to the house after he was supposed to have left.’

‘Is this … Are you talking about the night of the fire now?’

Jean nodded grimly. ‘I parked my car about ten minutes’ walk away, just in case any of their neighbours saw me and made a comment to Jack later on. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. I rang it again. I had Kate’s number so I – I know I shouldn’t have, I know, but – I sent her a text, asking if Jack was home. And literally, as I pressed send, I saw a glint of something, just at the corner of the house. Another car. Jack’s. He hadn’t left yet.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t do anything, except leave.’

They fell into a long silence, Emily thinking about how things might have been different if Jean had done something and sure that Jean was, in that moment, wondering the same thing.

‘I think she told him,’ Jean said. ‘Confronted him. That night, before he left to go meet Ben. And I think he knew his time was up. He knew it was all about to come crashing down, and there was no way he would let that happen. He’d lived a life where every bad thing he’d done had just gone away. Why wouldn’t this too? He probably felt confident he could spin another story. And he did , didn’t he? Within a few days, they knew Kate hadn’t died in the fire, that she’d been beaten to death. And yet, what happened? Nothing fucking much. Yeah, OK, now he’s getting arrested. But it’s been almost a year. And how much do you want to bet he’ll be released without charge?’

‘When you say every bad thing?’

‘Ben thinks he had something to do with Charlie Heeney’s suicide too,’ Jean said. ‘Their friend who took his own life just before the Olympics? He and Jack were really close, and the only sport Jack truly loved was tormenting people. Ben told me that just before Kate quit her job on TV, she was getting messages. Stalker-y stuff. Really nasty. He thought Jack was sending them to her, and I’d tend to agree. Because that’s what he does. He chips away at you, little by little. You don’t notice until it’s too late, by which time the chips have turned into cracks, and then all it takes is one more blow from him and you’ve broken down completely.’

Emily thought of her own messages, the note under the door. Even the casual mention of Neil when she’d arrived, which had shaken her confidence from the get-go. Had Jack been chipping away at her, undermining her all this time? Was that why she’d come to feel sorry for him? To want to help him? Why she’d believed him? Enough to tell him her secrets?

But then how did she know that Jean was telling the truth now?

‘Why did Ben offer him the use of this house?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t. Jack asked him for it.’

‘Why didn’t he say no?’

‘Because with Jack, it’s always easier to go along. And this way, Ben knew what was happening. He was in the loop.’

‘Why do you think he’s doing this book?’

‘I think it’s about sympathy,’ Jean said. ‘That was always the ink he wrote his lies with. Because what are you going to say about a guy who saw his dad die in the car next to him when he was thirteen? Or whose friend took his own life right before he went to the Olympics? Who Jack dedicated his silver medal to? Or whose beautiful wife died in a fire while he was out having a pint? But when the facts about Kate’s death came out, and people’s opinions of him changed, well … It was only a matter of time before the allegations followed. So he knew that he needed that sympathy back, or he was going to be in real trouble.’ She paused. ‘And he needs money. Exis is crumbling – not that that would really matter to Jack, but people knowing about it would. He can’t be seen to fail. He can’t stand it. But he doesn’t get paid for this, does he? So I’m not sure where that fits in. I’m sure he has some kind of angle.’

‘He does get paid for this,’ Emily said, frowning. Of course he does – it’s his book. ‘Although the publisher said something about the proceeds going to his charitable foundation.’

‘Really? I didn’t think sources did.’

‘ Sources? ’ Emily repeated, confused.

‘Yeah,’ Jean said. ‘Isn’t that what he is here, technically? A source on a story?’

Emily had no idea what Jean meant. But the bigger, more pressing issue was that she had no idea what Jean expected her to do.

‘Jean, look. When I said to you that I didn’t understand, I meant I don’t understand why you’re here, telling me this. Why it’s so important that you do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information. What you expect me to do with it.’

‘Use it,’ Jean said, frowning. ‘Put it in the book.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘Not right now, I know that. You have to investigate. Get evidence. Back it up. And there’ll be legal challenges. I’m sure that’s why we’ve had no luck so far in getting anyone in the media to care about this. They’re too afraid to print anything about him that might prejudice a future trial. But this book is happening, right? I mean, you’re still here, so …’

Emily let a beat pass.

‘Jean, I’m sorry, but I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m not writing about Jack, or this case. It’s not that kind of book. I’m helping him write his story. In the first person. A memoir. I’m not an investigative journalist. Really, I’m just a typist.’

Now it was Jean who said she didn’t understand.

‘Whatever Jack says goes in this book,’ Emily clarified. ‘And that’s all that does. He says it, I write it down and then he gets to approve every last word before it goes to print. This is about him telling his side of the story. Unless he’s charged, that is. If that happens, then there might be the kind of book I think you’re hoping for. But it will be a long ways away. They’ll have to wait for a verdict. And it wouldn’t be me who’d be writing it.’

Emily saw the facts of the situation dawn on Jean’s face, flashing up one after the other like the stages of grief. Denial. No, it can’t be. Anger. So Jack wins yet again? Bargaining. There must be something we can do.

‘What made you think I was writing about him?’ Emily asked.

‘Because that’s what he told Ben. He told him it was a top-secret project so he couldn’t say much, but he said that. Or at least gave Ben that impression.’

‘What about the guards? What if you went to them?’

‘I did go to them. Maybe not soon enough, but I did. And I told them I’d sent Kate a message that night, that they should be able to find a record of it even if her phone did go missing. And about the bruise. But so what? What does any of that prove? Do you know how much it takes to build a case? To even get it brought to court?’

‘He’s being arrested, Jean.’

‘That’s no guarantee of anything, especially with him.’ The look on Jean’s face was now one of acceptance. ‘I’m sure Jack Smyth will find a way to get away with this , too.’