It was Niall’s questions, though, that had left me unsettled, and I tried to analyse them as I drove back to Chichester. I could understand why he wanted to talk to me about the fire risk in the Brunswick Square flat, because that was the reason for my visit to Ingrid. In a business capacity. But he could have asked me about that on the phone. It hadn’t required the full charm offensive of Grace’s exquisite lunch.

He had also definitely been sounding me out about Alexandra’s role in the proceedings. Even pushing me towards the idea that she might have had a role in her mother’s death. Which would have worried me less if I hadn’t already got suspicions of my own moving in that direction.

A rather unpleasant chain of logic was forming in my mind. If one were being profoundly cynical, which I’m not by nature but have occasionally had to be, one might see a pattern. Alexandra had only called me in to check on her mother’s risk status, so that I could testify to the danger, in the event of something happening to Ingrid. In retrospect, it was striking how quickly both the police and Niall Connor had contacted me for my views. And the only person who could have put them on to me was Alexandra.

Which meant of course that she might have been planning—

My mobile rang. I looked at the in-car display. Ben.

I answered immediately.

‘Hello, Ma,’ he said in that languid, sending-up voice I so love.

‘Look, I’m in the car. I’ll find somewhere to park.’

‘All that hands-free technology is wasted on you, isn’t it, Ma? The best minds in Silicon Valley worked for years to produce the ultimate high-tec safe in-car phone system, only for Ellen Curtis to pronounce that it’s not good enough for her.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said drily, as I edged the Yeti into a layby. ‘All right, I’m a dinosaur. But I can’t concentrate on driving and talking on the phone at the same time. You know that.’

‘If you say so, Ma.’

‘Anyway … putting my technophobia on one side … how are you?’

‘I’m fine.’ His voice sounded worryingly light and brittle. ‘And you?’

‘Also fine. Just driving home after a very good lunch in Petworth.’

‘Who with?’ he asked sharply.

‘A couple who … It’s too complicated to explain now. And irrelevant.’

‘Oh, a couple.’ He larded the words with mock-disappointment. ‘I thought it might be Mr Right.’

Ben has this running joke about me meeting someone else. I never know how serious he is about it. He was totally devastated by Oliver’s death. On the edge of his teens when it happened, a very vulnerable age. I wonder how he would react if I did start seeing someone else …?

Not that he need have any worries on that score. Since being widowed, I have had my fair share of men coming on to me and, though it has led to some socially awkward problems of extrication, I’ve never been tempted. I think – and it’s not a thought that I always find comforting – that I’m a one-man woman. And that man, sadly, is no longer available.