Page 77 of The Lucky Winners

‘This is terrible,’ Dev mumbles, clearly dazed. ‘What happened?’

‘We’re unable to comment on the cause of death at this time. I’m sure you understand.’

Dev says, ‘Of course, but we’ll do anything we can to help.’

A mountain of dread is piling into my chest. It’s getting harder to breathe.

I keep seeing those icy white floodlights, the figures moving by the water, the flash of cold blue from the ambulance.

A body in the lake, like history repeating itself.

I swallow hard, forcing myself to speak again, though my voice comes out wobbling.

I feel a sickening lurch in my stomach, pictures of Sarah’s smiling face filling my head. Arriving fresh and excited for drinks, chatting and laughing until it all went wrong.

Our falling-out…her running down towards the lake…

Parsons frowns at me. ‘Why impossible?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Just then, you said, “That’s impossible. It can’t be her”,’ the detective says smoothly. ‘Why is it impossible?’

‘I meant … it just seems impossible that we saw Sarah only last night and now she might be …’ I stop talking.

‘Have you spoken to Sarah’s fiancé, Jack?’ Dev says.

Parsons gives a single nod. ‘He reported Miss Fielder missing.’

I feel the colour drain from my cheeks as the realization hits me. They’ll know about my argument with Sarah. Jack will naturally have told the police how she ran out into the storm, all upset. Tilda and Simon witnessed it, too. None of them are going to stay quiet about that. If I don’t say anything now, it will look very much like I’m trying to hide something.

‘I suppose this is a good time to mention we had a bit of a falling-out,’ I say carefully. ‘Last night.’

Dev gives me a look as if to warn me:Careful!But he seems slightly relieved, as if he thinks it’s the right thing to do.

‘Can I ask why you didn’t think to mention this before?’ Parsons asks briskly. ‘Ms Fielder’s fiancé didn’t …’

‘Jack told me there’d been some tension between them,’ Dev says vaguely. ‘Maybe he was worried you might think that –’

I interject. ‘I didn’t think it was relevant and … Well, I’m telling you now.’

‘What happened between the two of you?’ Parsons says briskly, pen poised over her notepad.

I close my eyes, squeezing them tight against a flashback of the past. A cold, impersonal interview room. Two detectives and a recording device.

I open my eyes and take a sharp breath, trying to keep my voice level.

‘We had a disagreement about something silly and Sarah left in a huff. I went after her, but there was to be no reasoning with her.’

‘It was drink,’ Dev adds, by way of an explanation. ‘Tempers getting frayed.’

Parsons ignores Dev and keeps her gaze trained on me. ‘This disagreement, what was it about?’

‘It was over something silly. I caught her …foundher, I should say, taking photographs of the house without permission, which ended up on Facebook.’ I clear my throat, embarrassed by how absurd it sounds in the light of what’s happened. ‘It’s no big deal, really, it just annoyed me she hadn’t asked if it was OK.’

‘Can you show us the Facebook page you’re referring to?’ Parsons says.

I open my phone and tap the screen. I frown and do it again as everyone waits. ‘Looks like it’s gone,’ I murmur. ‘Maybe Meta deactivated the page.’