I lifted my head up and shouted to the outer office. ‘Put the kettle on, Lav.’ I banged my head back down onto the desk. ‘It’s Lois. Again,’ said the disconnected voice. ‘Do you want sugar in your coffee?’ she asked, and the fact that she had to ask made me miss Lavender even more.

Alison Marshall wiggled her way into my office. There were no tear stains on her immaculately made-up face. I gestured wearily to her to take a seat. Mrs Marshall sat down and allowed her coat to fall to her waist, revealing an incredible figure. She saw me staring, forced a smile and said, ‘It’s the only advantage of being married to a top cosmetic surgeon.’

Lois placed two cups of coffee on the desk. I don’t know if she heard Alison Marshall’s next words to me–at first, I wasn’t sure if I had either.

‘Whatever they’re saying…he did it.’

I think that my mouth was probably more open than it should have been at that point. Alison Marshall went on. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Ms McLennan. Surely, I’m not the first wife to think her husband capable of murder?’ She flipped her hand at me as though she would dismiss anything I had to say to the contrary.

A wife cannot be compelled to give evidence against her husband in a criminal trial but, in this case, if Alison Marshall was ever in the witness box, I would have to treat her as a hostile witness. I also had to be careful; it was likely that Alison didn’t know her husband’s true identity. The public hatred stirred up by Matthew Cook’s murder was incalculable. When Renee Smith and Kevin Milne were granted new identities, they were advised never to divulge their secret to anyone. Someone in authority had leaked this to the press, and periodically they would run a story. The venom in Alison’s eyes assured me that if she knew she was married to Kevin Milne, it would have been all over the Internet and she would have been waiting outside the insurance company offices to collect on the sum assured on death.