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Robyn was woken by her mobile phone. She pushed Schrödinger away to reach it, glancing at the time as she did so. It was coming up to 5 a.m.

‘Carter.’

The voice at the other end was tearful and quiet. ‘It’s Juliet Fallows. I can’t sleep. I had to ring you.’

Robyn sat up, fully alert. ‘Is everything okay, Juliet?’

‘No. I’m okay but it isn’t okay. Oh, God, I’m not making any sense, am I?’

‘You’re fine,’ said Robyn smoothly, hoping to calm the woman. ‘Take your time. What’s this about?’

‘I shouldn’t be ringing you, but I can’t keep silent about this. I’ve been thinking about Tessa and Anthony. I should have told you everything when you asked me, but I didn’t dare.’

Robyn was still struggling to comprehend what Juliet was saying.

‘What’s worrying you?’

Juliet let out an almighty sigh. ‘It’s to do with the lottery win. I should have come clean. The money shouldn’t be ours.’

‘I don’t understand, Juliet. Why not?’

There was silence, during which time Robyn wondered if Juliet was going to hang up. Eventually, she spoke. ‘We won the pub quiz like I told you and decided to use the sixty pounds winnings for lottery lucky dip tickets. We’d had too much to drink that night and were joking about what we’d do if we actually won the lottery. Liam told us about a couple whose numbers had come up. He has an incredible memory for numbers and he was convinced their ticket had won a rollover jackpot in November. The couple were away on one of their regular holidays, and he was certain they wouldn’t even be aware they’d won. They always relied on Liam to tell them if they’d won or not, by passing the ticket through the shop machine. They had a routine, and instead of getting a weekly ticket, they’d buy monthly lucky dip ones that covered them for every draw that month. At the end of each month, they’d hand Liam the ticket to check it out. Liam said they sometimes won a tenner or even a little more but mostly they lost, and he’d throw the ticket in the shop bin, give them a new one for the next month, and off they’d go again.

‘A few more drinks later and we were working out ways of getting our hands on that winning ticket. If Liam was right, he could tell the couple they hadn’t won, pretend to throw the ticket away, keep it, and we could pocket the winnings.

‘Liam wasn’t keen on the idea. Said it wasn’t moral. Anthony took him to one side and had a man-to-man chat with him. It worked. He agreed to the plan.

‘Two weeks later, Liam told us he’d got the ticket, and it was, as he thought, a winner. We became the official winners of the rollover jackpot. We decided to keep quiet about it like I told you, and then on December the thirtieth I got a phone call from a man who said he knew everything but was giving us all a chance to confess and hand back the winnings, rather than report us. Tessa rang me two minutes after I hung up. She’d had a similar call and had been alarmed by it. We both telephoned Anthony. He was convinced it was a prank call and there was no possible way anybody could have known what we did. He told us not to be so silly and to relax.

‘I gave it a week, then two, and there were no further calls. I decided Anthony was right. And then last week Tessa was killed, and soon after, Anthony died.’ There was a lengthy pause before she spoke again.

‘I should never have got carried away like that. I was so excited at the prospect of all that wealth. Who wouldn’t want to get their hands on a million pounds?’

‘Did the man who rang you tell you his name?’

‘You asked me once about Henry Gregson. I’ve been wondering if it could have been him.’

‘Juliet, you’ll have to come to the station and make a statement. You can’t keep the money. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know we can’t. It’s been eating away at me. It was so wrong of us to even think about cheating that couple like that. I’m such a lousy example for my children, aren’t I? I want to make this right now. I want to make amends. I’ll come in later today.’

‘I’d like to send an officer around to keep an eye on you while we investigate further. Or, if you’d rather, we could move you somewhere out of harm’s way.’

‘No, that’s silly. I have to go to work this morning. I can’t let them down at such short notice. I’ll go to work and come straight to the station as soon as I finish.’

Juliet hung up. Robyn dialled DCI Flint’s number and brought him up to speed.

‘I’ll arrange for officers to watch her house,’ he said. ‘What about Liam Carrington and Roger Jenkinson?’

‘I’m going to bring them into the station, sir, for further questioning. We might need to keep an eye on them afterwards.’

‘I’ll sort it first thing.’

Flint disconnected, leaving Robyn alert and eager to get started. The puzzle was at last taking shape. If Henry Gregson knew about the ticket being stolen, was that enough to get him killed? Robyn suspected it might be. She had a lot of work to do. Leaving the cat slumbering, she padded downstairs. It was going to be a long but productive day, of that she was sure.