might just be hoping for the best. I suppose he could have run away—’ She sighed. ‘But Arthur said he wouldn’t vanish without getting in touch.’
‘I wish I knew who the other person was who saw Johnny that night,’ Lizzie said.
‘What?’ Jules frowned at her.
‘Someone else saw Johnny that night,’ Lizzie said. ‘Someone gave him a lift to my flat. He said he had dropped his phone in their car. I know they found the phone in my flat—’ she ignored Jules’s attempt to interrupt, ‘so either Johnny was lying to me, or he left the phone there deliberately, or someone else put it there later.’
‘You mean Arthur?’ Jules said. She frowned. ‘That doesn’t seem likely. Arthur got in touch with me as soon as you were arrested. He’s withholding stuff from the police for your sake, you know.’ At Lizzie’s sharp sideways glance, she smiled. ‘Yeah, he told me all about the notebook and about your weird psychic visions. I wish you’d told me yourself, Lizzie. I can’t help if I don’t know everything, you know.’
‘OK,’ Lizzie said after a moment. ‘I’m sorry. I just haven’t had a chance to think everything through and I didn’t want you to decide I was mad.’
Jules laughed. ‘I’ve known about it for years,’ she said. ‘I’ve known you were psychic since we were kids.’
‘What?’ Lizzie was so surprised she sat bolt upright. ‘How?’
Jules shot her an exasperated look. ‘Oh God, Lizzie, don’t you remember my costumed doll, the one from Italy? You picked it up and started to tell me all about how Grandad had found it on a market stall in Sorrento and how he’d haggled over the price with the stallholder. You described it all so vividly and there was no way you could have known all that stuff. There were other things too…’ The car increased speed as they joined the M40 slipping into the traffic. ‘I’ve always known,’ Jules finished with a shrug.
‘You never said.’ Lizzie stared at her.
‘Well, you never gave the impression you wanted to talk about it,’ Jules said. ‘So I respected that. Anyway, Arthur told me everything – or I assume it was everything.’ She glanced at Lizzie. ‘Plus, whilst we’re on the subject of you and Arthur,’ she said, ‘don’t forget he posted bail for you. That’s a huge amount of money, Lizzie, so don’t go running off or you’ll ruin him. But I reckon that suggests he trusts you.’ She gave Lizzie a sly smile. ‘Kind of against his better judgement, but still…’
‘That just about sums up our relationship,’ Lizzie said. She felt too tired to process anything and Jules could clearly see that because she touched her hand.
‘Don’t worry about any of this now,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you to The High and you can have a bath and a sleep, then we’ll talk properly. Arthur’s going to call you tomorrow and arrange to come to see you when you’ve had a bit of time to settle in.’
‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to see me like this.’ Lizzie had caught a waft of the unpleasantly fusty smell of her clothes and Jules smiled.
‘That’s more like it,’ she said. She squeezed Lizzie’s hand. ‘Please don’t worry, Lizzie,’ she repeated. ‘They can’t pin Amelia’s murder on you anyway, or even that you conspired with Dudley to murder her, because there’s no strong evidence that it was murder. In the same way they can’t find any proof that anything suspicious has happened to Johnny. We’ll find out what happened.’
Lizzie nodded. She closed her eyes as Jules pulled out to overtake a lorry and dozed as the countryside flashed past like speeded-up film. When she woke up, they were turning off the A40, down Burford Hill. The old houses lined the street, mellow even in the dull afternoon. It felt surprisingly familiar and reassuring given that she hadn’t been there for years. Another right turn and then a left, bumping along tiny narrow roads now, and suddenly the traffic and noise was left behind and there were the gates to The High standing open and Jules swung the car onto the drive and came to a halt. Lizzie scrambled out, looking up at the house.
‘Oh my God,’ she said blankly.
Virginia creeper cloaked the entire building, choking the stone, smothering the windows. The drive was thick with dandelion and rosebay willow herb, poppies, convolvulus and ground elder, rioting in violent triumph. The lawn evidently hadn’t seen a mower in years.
‘I didn’t have the chance to