The house was Cotswold stone with climbing roses in beds at the front that were not yet in bud. I’d made a deal with the cabby. He would wait down the road, out of sight, but within reach if I had to flee. Alice must have heard us. As I got out, she was already standing in the open doorway. A smile on her face, barefoot, in jeans and a pale knit. Unlike her brother, Alice had kept off the booze and out of the sun. She had not put on weight or cut off her hair.

“Andy.” Her tone was familiar, fond even. Nearing, I noted the delicate fan of lines at the outer corner of each eye, but she stepped back as I came in so there was no cheek to kiss or hand to shake. “I’ve got the kettle on.” Already she was walking away from me and with barely a hesitation I crossed the threshold and followed her inside.

The air was fragrant with baking; the whole rear of the house was taken up by a huge open-plan kitchen and living room and some little cakes were cooling on a wire rack. Through the glass wall that ran the length of the room, you could see the garden and beyond it a patchwork of fields and, in the nearest, a handful of sodden-looking sheep. We were a little over an hour’s drive from the manor, but the countryside here was flatter and on a smaller scale. There was a stream further away; you couldn’t quite see it, only the long and lovely willows bordering its banks.

I had what Alice was having, so we both had green tea and a little cake that fell into ruins the moment I touched it. Alice offered me a conspiratorial smile.

“I’m not much of a baker. Usually I buy. The boys are just as happy. It doesn’t even touch the sides. I swear you could throw a load of fat and sugar in a trough and it’d be all the same to them. These are gluten free, no dairy either.”

“How old?”

“Nine and six.”

There was a bit more of that. Alice’s husband commuted to London for work. Her eldest boy boarded but came home at weekends. The younger one was at the school in the village and Alice would pick him up later. “He likes to walk back. He’s convinced there’s a troll living under the bridge. He tries to feed it cheese. So what can I help you with? Rob was very mysterious. Childish man, my brother. I don’t blame his ex-wife for divorcing him. Childishness is fine until you have kids of your own.”

I told her; she dabbed at the crumbs on her plate with a fingertip, nodding as though I had confirmed her suspicions.

“I thought this would be about David.”