### Introduction Added on [[2025-09-17|2025-09-17 11:09]]: > Garner is interested in ordinary people who snap and do heinous things; whose ‘self-restraint suddenly stops working’. She knows such human beings are ‘just an exploded version’ of what many of us – most of us, probably – fantasise about in moments of intense anger or distress. ^2025-09-17-000001 --- ### Chapter 1 Added on [[2025-09-19|2025-09-19 11:51]]: > Often, in the seven years to come, I would regret that I had not simply blessed them that day and walked away. ^2025-09-19-000001 --- Added on [[2025-09-19|2025-09-19 11:53]]: > Countless men declared in anger and distress that it couldn’t possibly have been an accident; that a loving father would never leave the car and swim away. He would fight to save his kids, and, if he failed, he would go to the bottom with them. Rare were the ones who, after making such a declaration, paused and added in a lower voice, ‘At least, that’s what I hope I’d do.’ ^2025-09-19-000002 --- Added on [[2025-09-19|2025-09-19 12:14]]: > When the paramedics had pulled up on the shoulder of the road, they found Farquharson standing near the fence, wet through, with a blanket round his shoulders. His skin was cold and he was shivering. His pulse rate was up, his blood pressure normal. Neither of his lungs was wheezing or crackling. They asked him to cough. He brought up no phlegm. Breathalysed, he blew zero. He had no history of blackouts, he said, but had had a dry cough for the past few days. ^2025-09-19-000003 --- Added on [[2025-12-10|2025-12-10 19:06]]: > ‘Farquharson’s counsel,’ I texted, ‘is killing us with boredom.’ > He replied at once: ‘A time-honoured approach, when no feather to fly with. Still, one has heard it said that the fear of boring oneself or one’s listeners is a great enemy of truth.’ ^2025-12-10-000001 --- Added on [[2025-12-15|2025-12-15 13:59]]: > The police took careful note of the positions of the car’s controls. The key was in the ignition, off and locked. The automatic gearshift was in drive. The handbrake was off, as were the headlights and parking lights. The heater was off: its knob was at ten o’clock, in the blue part of the dial. All three seatbelts were unbuckled. The windows were all shut. The two rear doors were locked. When Sergeant Exton tried to open the driver’s side rear door, the exterior handle snapped off in his hand. ^2025-12-15-000001 --- Added on [[2025-12-17|2025-12-17 17:43]]: > He didn’t sound entranced on that tape. He sounded…something else, something not quite right. Too quick to answer? Too eager to please? A nose dive, in foot-deep water? And when they pulled the car out of the dam, wasn’t the heater off? My head was full of a very loud clanging. Nothing expert, nothing trained or intellectual. Just a shit-detector going off, that was all. The alarm bells of a woman who had been in the world for more than sixty years, knowing men, sometimes hearing them say true things, sometimes being told lies. ^2025-12-17-000001 --- Added on [[2025-12-18|2025-12-18 20:01]]: > ‘Mr King,’ said Rapke. ‘Do you know a man by the name of Robert Farquharson?’ > ‘Yes, I do.’ > ‘How do you know him?’ > ‘We grew up together. He’s a friend of mine, a mate, a family friend.’ > The two mates kept their faces turned in opposite directions. ^2025-12-18-000001 --- Added on [[2025-12-29|2025-12-29 17:37]]: > ‘I’m coming round to that journalist’s way of thinking,’ said Louise, picking up her chopsticks. ‘That he’s a selfish, cold-hearted bastard. Who betrayed his children’s love and trust in the most horrible way.’ ^2025-12-29-000001 ---