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I couldn’t help laughing at how true that was.

‘Yeah. I kind of escaped to London thinking I’d find my people.

My mom made me think Dad was like me. Which turned out to be not quite true.

Like, he’s got this sideways brain, too, I think.

But he’s all in control and nicely turned out and tidy…

I think he sometimes wonders how he managed to produce me, if I’m honest.’

‘Honestly, fuck him if he isn’t proud of you,’ Cordelia said, simply.

‘You’re doing more with your life than most people are.

I decided years ago that if my mum didn’t like what I was doing with mine, that was her problem to deal with.

’ She paused, thoughtfully, her expression distant but not unhappy.

‘So now we just coexist, really, and it’s actually better.

’ She looked back at me again, with that direct, piercing gaze of hers.

‘Do you still talk to yours? Your mum?’

I took a moment to breathe out, because this was weirdly hard to admit to.

‘We’ve not really spoken a lot since I left.

It’s almost like she’s decided that Ben is their child, and I’m…

Dad’s… Though I keep trying. And I will always want to talk to Ben, who may be unimaginative and a little dull at times but is the sweetest boy alive. ’

I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you here, Reid.

I mean, you know all about Mom and Ben and Frank.

Maybe I’m saying it because it tells you a little about Cordelia and how she’s both insightful and also kind.

Or maybe because it’s late and I’m on my own in this house and I feel like dwelling on it.

Anyway, she helped me. In lots of ways, beyond just getting ready for the cricket match.

The event itself started out feeling like a disappointment, you know.

Although there were a lot of folks scattered around the stand and grass to watch, they were largely seated.

That made it difficult to make any new connections, and I was immediately worried the only thing I was going to get out of it was the amazing free picnic provided by Dad.

He’d bought champagne, too, obviously. Taittinger, this time, with a whole specially shaped bucket with its own integral ice packs.

It’s unsurprising that he has paraphernalia to enable him to drink a bottle at the right temperature anywhere, given how much of the stuff he drinks.

He reminds me of those people who treat themselves to an iced coffee whenever they’ve done anything, only with twenty times the disposable income.

Tough day? Open a Moet. Written a difficult email? Better buy Veuve. It’s a warm Tuesday? Time for Taittinger.

I sometimes wonder whether there will ever be an occasion when champagne doesn’t seem appropriate to him. I imagine something bad happening to me and Dad somehow still dealing with it by opening champagne.

Which makes him sound monstrous, doesn’t it? And it probably isn’t even fair. I guess I’m just fixated on dark thoughts tonight.

I appreciated the Taittinger, anyway, even while I worried we’d be drinking it alone.

But somehow Dad just drew people in. I don’t know if it’s because he’s kind of famous for his semiconductor invention stuff or because he keeps his distance a little, but a series of mostly men of varying ages came over in ones and twos to seek an audience.

What fascinated me watching their interactions, though, was that Dad didn’t actually seem to like any of them all that much.

And I wasn’t totally surprised. Several of the older ones dropped snobby, acid or just horrible comments about other people during the conversation, and I was glad when each of them eventually ambled back to their own seat.

‘Is everybody you know an asshole?’ I muttered to Dad, after the fourth round.

He gave me a twitching smile. ‘Only the ones I introduce you to.’

I didn’t hold out much hope for the next acolyte to come over, this one a tall but heavy-looking man of probably forty-five. But this guy actually turned out to be gold, because he mentioned that his daughter was with him, in an obvious brag.

‘Obviously, with all the championship stuff, she’s more into athletics than cricket,’ he added. ‘But she has to have a day off sometimes.’

I instantly went from disinterested to laser-focused. ‘Oh, sounds like she’s training at a high level?’

The guy looked delighted that I’d asked. ‘Yes, she’ll be at the World Championships in August.’

‘That’s awesome.’ It was easy to say it like I meant it, because this was someone who had a serious chance of having known Holly.

And maybe Tanya, too , I thought.

‘You know, we should probably introduce Tess and Aria,’ Dad said, totally understanding the assignment. ‘My god-daughter is an obsessive rower. I feel as though they’d get on, and it might be nice for Aria to actually socialise for a change.’

His friend– whose name I honestly can’t even remember, Reid– seemed enthusiastic about this idea.

It then turned into serious excitement the moment he realised I was apparently both a Lauder and an Olympian in the making.

Without me needing to say a word, the guy led me over to where his wife and daughter had a picnic blanket spread on the grass outside the boundary.

His wife was long and leggy like he was and had linen trousers that I remember thinking were staying unbelievably creaseless considering she was hunkered on the ground.

She gave me a smile and then lowered her sunglasses to look back at the match, the only one of the three who actually seemed interested in the cricket.

Tess turned out to be in training for the heptathlon. She had a tall, strong physique that was much more like mine than Holly’s, and a cheerful, slightly self-centred way of talking to everyone that reminded me of the particularly rich and talented girls from Columbia.

She talked at me for some while about her achievements and was actually pretty easy to steer onto the subjects I wanted.

After a little while, I told her I’d made friends with someone whose girlfriend had been a promising athlete.

I said James Sedgewick’s name, and Tess’s eyes widened in the way of someone who has a personal investment.

‘Oh, god, poor Holly,’ she said. And her reaction was at that fascinating point between emotional and This is one of my favourite subjects .

‘I used to talk to Holly at meet-ups and ask her advice on running. Because, you know, she was good. Genuinely talented.’ She blinked. ‘I learned things from her.’

‘Aww, I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘It must be so hard, losing a friend like that.’

Tess nodded, her mouth twisting slightly.

She wasn’t a friend , I thought with a buzz of satisfaction. She’s got something to say.

Tess glanced away at the match, half-heartedly applauding. It looked like someone had just been bowled out, and I did my best to applaud, too, while having no idea whether this was our side or theirs.

‘I mean, we weren’t the closest ever,’ she went on, dropping her voice.

Her parents were now talking to each other, and I guessed Tess didn’t want them hearing this.

‘I didn’t hang out with her or anything.

Like, I think she saw me as competition after a while, yeah?

And you know, she wasn’t totally this sweet person they all went on about in the news. ’

‘Oh, really?’ I asked. Then I added, ‘People are so rarely that perfect, though, are they? Everyone just hates talking badly of the dead. Which seems… disingenuous.’

‘Exactly,’ Tess said.

‘Interesting that she saw you as competition,’ I said. ‘Did she try to stop you succeeding?’

‘Well, she refused to keep helping me with my running after I started placing in races,’ Tess said with a hint of a smile. ‘And she was pretty annoyed that I was given more funding than she was at one point.’

I’d been hoping for more, obviously, Reid.

And it occurred to me immediately that if I’d been Holly, an orphan who’d apparently burned through her inheritance on paying the remaining fees on a public school, I’d probably feel frustrated that someone whose parents could have bought a whole athletics track got more funding.

I think my doubt must have shown, because Tess quickly threw in, ‘And she had a temper, too. The whole good-sportswoman thing fell down in the changing rooms. She got tripped in a race once and helped the other girl up, checked she was OK. But afterwards she kicked a locker door so hard it had to be replaced.’ Tess gave a much more obvious smile.

‘And she was vile to her boyfriend sometimes.’

‘To James?’ I asked, with genuine surprise.

‘Absolutely,’ Tess said. ‘We’d see it sometimes, out on the field.

Her having a go at him and him just taking it.

He’s too soft-hearted to argue back. And once I overheard a whole row up close.

She was furious with him because he’d uploaded something and tagged her in it and it made her look bad.

She was spitting. It didn’t matter how many times he said he’d taken it down now, she kept on going. ’

Now this, Reid, was finally something useful, and exactly the reason it made sense to talk to someone who didn’t idolise Holly.

But it also made me feel really uncomfortable.

Do you ever feel like that, Reid? Because here I am, trying to find Holly’s killer, and all the while I’m kind of putting her on trial, too.

Looking at the reasons someone might have killed her like she might have deserved it, even though I don’t think anyone deserves to be murdered.

Least of all a talented, twenty-one-year-old orphan.

Anyway, I decided not to push any further on the Holly angle with Tess. It was partly that weird discomfort and partly pragmatism. The last thing I wanted to do was seem too curious and for word to get round. Kit and his gang might not be here, but they’d probably know people who were.

What I asked next was… it was maybe stupid. But we’d come this far towards the subject that I could feel it opening out in front of me and just drawing me on. The whole thing within touching distance.

So I sighed, and said, ‘It’s so sad seeing another Cambridge athlete die, anyway. There was the hockey player too last year. Tanya… Morris, was it? Something like that? I read about it, and it was just the worst.’

‘Oh, yeah…’ Tess said, her expression thoughtful. ‘That was awful, too. I didn’t know her, but a girl in my college was on the team with her and was a mess about it. Felt like she’d let her down.’

‘Let her down how?’ I asked.

But at that point I have to admit that I lost track of what Tess was saying in reply. Because having let my eyes drift around the cricket grounds, my gaze had suddenly landed on a very familiar face.

Probably only a hundred yards away, standing in a small group up in the stands, was James Sedgewick, and he was looking at us with a flat, furious stare. The kind of stare that makes your stomach feel like it’s falling out of your shoes.

Whatever Tess was saying got cut off, anyway. She followed my gaze and just… stopped. Broke off in mid-sentence.

And when I looked at her face, she looked terrified, Reid. Genuinely terrified.