That the lady had already been generously imbibing one or the other (or maybe both) beverages was rather apparent by the way she walked very carefully to her chair and sat down. Sure enough, on the little table beside her chair, was a half-full bottle of vodka and a half-full glass.

The glass she lifted at once and took a sip. ‘Well, don’t hover over me,’ she admonished them with a smile. ‘Sit down. And who is the handsome young Adonis?’ she asked, looking at Vincent, who promptly looked uncomfortable.

The artist was wearing a long warm woollen gown of various knitted shades that alternately clung and floated around her in a way that he found odd. Her make-up had been applied a little lackadaisically, and her hair was rather mussed, but there was no denying she had a definite sexual allure.

He reminded himself that she was old enough to be his mother, and glanced at his father, who was watching the artist thoughtfully.

‘This is my son, Vincent. I hope you don’t mind me bringing him along, but he was dying to meet you,’ he lied urbanely. ‘He’s an admirer of your work.’

Vincent, who wouldn’t know a Mondrian from an El Greco, blinked and nodded enthusiastically.

Katherine regarded both men with a mocking, cynical smile. ‘And that’s why you’ve come to see me?’ she asked, her voice just a little slurred, and a lot more sceptical. She glanced across at Trudy in her uniform and sighed gently.

‘Not quite, Miss Morton.’ Trudy, knowing that she couldn’t ask for a better cue, stepped in cautiously. ‘Or should I say Mrs Fairweather?’ she added calmly.

‘No, you should not,’ the artist responded tartly. ‘I was born Morton, and go by Morton. Besides, I’m divorced.’

‘Yes. But your daughter would have used your husband’s surname.’ Trudy stated matter-of-factly.

‘Amy Jean?’ Instinctively, Katherine’s head swivelled to regard the photograph resting on the sideboard that Trudy had noticed during their first visit to the flat. It depicted a pretty teenage girl, laughing straight at the camera. ‘Yes, Amy Jean was very fond of her father,’ the artist said. She sounded, to Trudy’s sensitive ears, a little bitter about this fact. ‘For some reason, we always seemed to rub each other up the wrong way. Even when she was little.’

‘I was so sorry to read about her death,’ Trudy said gently. She could feel both men become tense and uneasily alert as she started to get down to the nitty-gritty. ‘She died in a car accident, didn’t she?’

Trudy, of course, already knew that she had. Vincent had read about it in the library that morning.

‘Yes,’ Katherine confirmed with a long, wavering sigh, and took a hearty gulp of her neat vodka. ‘She was only eighteen.’

‘I can’t imagine it,’ Clement said softly, glancing at Vincent. ‘I have a daughter too,’ he added.