The Favour

by Nicci French

It was quite easy to lie after all.

‘This was Liam. You knew him. He was amazing. He wasn’t like anyone else. But he was also this.’

We’re all curious. You can’t blame us.’ Jude felt that she could blame them but she didn’t reply.

‘This executor thing. Go easy with it. Try to sort out your own life, not his.’

Jude left Erika abruptly and strode towards the house. She felt grubby, and wanted to go back to the flat and take her clothes off and shower, and never, not ever, come here again. It was a bad place, a place where anything could happen. There were no rules and no boundaries. There was no kindness here, she thought. It was a savage place.

‘You must all be so sick of me. Liam’s been murdered and nobody knows who did it and suddenly I’m here interfering with everything. I’m sick of me.’

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘He was like a dream. I don’t think that I really knew him at all.’