Bryn had his own opinions about that. ‘Archie Moore was about fifty-five when they moved here. It wasn’t right. I don’t know what the education welfare were thinking about allowing it. How could he provide for the needs of a teenage girl? Because that’s what she was when she left home. But they said she was receiving balanced schooling. She took all her exams a year early, passed with some of the highest marks in the country. But education isn’t only about exams, is it? He pushed her and pushed her. Not just in her school work, but music too. He sent her to Newtown for piano lessons and if you walked past in the evening you’d hear her practising. She didn’t have any sort of social life, not even with the other home-school kids. I don’t know where he bought her clothes for her but she dressed like a middle-aged woman. Who knows what sort of monster he was creating?’

Perez didn’t answer and Bryn continued: ‘No wonder she went a bit wild in the end.’

‘Wild in what way?’

‘It was the last summer, before she went off to college. She hung around with some of the bad lads in the village. The girls never seemed to take to her. There was nothing criminal, not that she was ever done for, at least. But drinking. Probably drugs. One night Archie reported her missing; she turned up a couple of days later with a hangover, looking as if she hadn’t slept for a week.’

‘Where had she been?’

‘She would never say. But with a man. There were rumours that she went off early to college so she could get an abortion.’

Perez didn’t ask how Bryn could know that. He too lived in a community where personal information leached into the public domain.

‘Did she come back to visit her father?’ Perez asked. ‘In the university holidays? After she graduated?’

‘No.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘That was the last time anyone here saw her, when she went off to uni on the coach from Newtown. I always thought that was very hard. I don’t like the man, but he’d done what he thought was best for her. Given her an education. She’d never have had all those chances without him. He didn’t even get invited to her wedding.’

‘Do you have any thoughts about why she might have stayed away?’

Another silence. ‘You’re thinking abuse?’ Bryn said. ‘Is that the way your mind’s working?’

‘I did wonder.’