Alex wondered whether there was ever going to be an evening when she would make it home before receiving a call that sent her veering off course yet again. She and Chloe had just turned onto the mountain road when her mobile began to ring. They had stayed at the station far later than intended, both frustrated by the absence of answers out there. Repeated calls to Carol Brooks’s home had gone unanswered, and though Alex found out fairly easily where the woman worked, the offices had closed at six and there was no one there to speak with.

‘DI King,’ the officer at the other end of the call said. ‘There’s been an incident at a house on Broadway – two young women involved in an altercation. One’s been stabbed.’

Alex rolled her eyes, wondering whether the uncharacteristic heat of the summer was turning everyone mad.

‘One of the officers who attended the call recognised one of the women. Looks like we’ve found Leah Cross.’

Alex stopped the car at the kerbside and glanced at Chloe. ‘Where is she now?’

‘University Hospital in Cardiff. Emergency unit.’

‘Do we know who the other woman is?’

‘Isobel Matthews.’

Alex pulled a face and sat back in the driving seat, trying for a moment to process the information. Isobel Matthews was Leighton Matthews’ daughter. Had Leah gone to her, or had she sought out Leah?

Was this a reaction to her father’s arrest?

‘We’re on our way,’ she told the officer. ‘Another thing … you said there’s been a stabbing. Which of the girls has been stabbed?’

‘Leah Cross.’

It wasn’t the answer Alex was expecting. The girl seemed already responsible for so much harm that her immediate assumption was that Isobel had been the injured party. She ended the call and pulled away from the roadside, her mind racing with the possibilities of what they might find when they arrived at the hospital. Where Leah Cross was concerned, nothing seemed straightforward.

---

‘She just flew at me. I couldn’t do anything to stop her.’

Leah Cross was lying in a hospital bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows. Her make-up was smudged around her eyes in thick black smears, and when she moved, she winced, putting a hand to the dressing that covered the stab wound to her stomach. If they hadn’t already known so much about her, the act might almost have been convincing.

‘We’ve already been to see Isobel,’ Alex told her. ‘She’s in quite a state.’

‘I had to,’ Leah said. ‘She went crazy … she was out of control.’

‘So you beat her up before or after she stabbed you?’ Chloe asked.

‘I didn’t beat her up; it was self-defence.’ The girl’s eyes moved from one woman to the other. ‘She attacked me, I fought back. If I hadn’t, she would have kept going … she’d have killed me. She was driving the car, you know, the one that hit me. It was her. Ask her.’

Alex studied Leah in disbelief. Even now, lying in a hospital room with a stab wound, her priority was incriminating others. Perhaps Leighton Matthews’ assessment of her character hadn’t been entirely inaccurate.

‘You managed to give her quite a beating considering the pain you must have been in,’ Chloe mused.

Leah narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

‘Where have you been for the past couple of days, Leah?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Staying with mates. I couldn’t go back to the house, not after what’s happened. I just wanted to clear my head.’

‘So you haven’t been trying to avoid us?’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

She was brazen, Alex thought. Even now, there wasn’t the slightest glimmer of remorse for any of the things she had been responsible for. Getting the truth from this girl would be an excavation project; one that involved the type of patience Alex sometimes lacked. Despite that, she couldn’t help hearing Leah’s accusations against Isobel Matthews repeating in her mind. What if she was telling the truth? Had Isobel been behind the wheel of that car?

Was it Isobel that Leighton had been trying to protect, and not his wife after all?

‘Amy Barker’s out of her coma,’ Alex said, pulling her chair closer to Leah’s bedside. ‘Thought you might be interested, seeing as you’re the one who put her there.’

Leah’s reaction suggested she had no idea what Alex was talking about. Either her stab wound had somehow caused her short-term memory loss, or she was an extremely convincing actress. They now knew enough about her to know the latter to be true.

‘Heard from Tom at all?’ Alex asked.

There it was: a telltale flicker in her eye. Leah knew that Tom was dead.

‘No.’

Alex held eye contact, knowing Leah would break first. ‘Amy’s made a positive identification of you as the person who sold her the drugs. So don’t think about doing another disappearing act, will you?’

Leah pressed the buzzer that rested on her bed. By the time a nurse arrived in the room moments later, tears had formed on the girl’s face and her expression had morphed from stubborn defiance to that of a persecuted victim, helpless at the hands of these two detectives who were so mercilessly hounding her. She really was a calculating little cow, Alex thought.

‘I think that’s probably enough for one day,’ the nurse said, reaching to the wall to cut short the sound of the buzzer still beeping out in the corridor.

‘You’re right,’ Alex said, giving Leah a false smile. ‘There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

She and Chloe left the room, leaving Leah in the hands of the fretting nurse.

‘How the hell did she fall for that?’ Chloe said, her voice laced with contempt. ‘My God, that girl is one of a kind.’

Alex said nothing, too busy trying to unravel the jumble of thoughts that knotted her brain. As despicable as Leah was, it seemed her sister wasn’t far behind.