But she had died first – of natural causes. It no longer mattered that she and Harry Betts hadn’t been on speaking terms, that no one had fetched Elsie Parrish, that Dr Moss had been called out to visit a healthy woman, that Mrs Betts had given orders to stop the painting. There was no motive. Eventually the tongues would cease to wag, Mrs Wrangton’s will would be proved, and the Bettses settle down to enjoy the rest of their lives in their newly decorated home.

Wexford put it out of his head, apart from wondering whether he should visit Castle Road and drop a word of warning to the gossips. Immediately he saw how impossible this would be. The slander would be denied, and besides he hardly saw his function as extending so far. No, let it die a natural death – as Mrs Wrangton had.

On Monday morning he was having breakfast, his wife reading a letter just come from her sister in Wales.

‘Frances says Bill’s mother has got to go into a nursing home at last.’ Bill was Wexford’s brother-in-law. ‘It’s either that or Fran having her, which really isn’t on.’

Wexford, from behind his newspaper, made noises indicative of sympathy with and support for Frances. He was reading a verbatim report of the trial of some bank robbers.

‘Ninety pounds a week,’ said Dora.

‘What did you say?’

‘I was talking to myself, dear. You read your paper.’

‘Did you say ninety pounds a week?’

‘That’s right. For the nursing home. I shouldn’t think Bill and Fran could stand that for long. It’s getting on for five thousand a year.’

‘But . . .’ Wexford almost stammered, ‘. . . I thought a couple of years ago you said it was twenty a week for what’s-her-name, Rosemary’s aunt, wherever they put her?’

‘Darling,’ said Dora gently, ‘first of all, that wasn’t a couple of years ago, it was at least twelve years ago. And secondly, haven’t you heard of the rising cost of living?’

An hour later he was in the matron’s office at Summerland, having made no attempt to disguise who he was, but presenting himself as there to enquire about a prospective home for an aged relative of his wife. Aunt Lilian. Such a woman had actually existed, perhaps still did exist in the remote Westmorland village from which the Wexfords had last heard of her in a letter dated 1959.

The matron was an Irishwoman, Mrs Corrigan. She seemed about the same age as Nurse Radcliffe. At her knee stood a boy of perhaps six, at her feet, playing with a toy tractor, was another of three. Outside the window three little girls were trying to coax a black cat from its refuge under a car. You might have thought this was a children’s home but for the presence of half a dozen old women sitting on the lawn in a half circle, dozing, muttering to themselves or just staring. The grounds were full of flowers, mauve and white lilac everywhere, roses coming out. From behind a hedge came the sound of a lawn mower, plied perhaps by the philoprogenitive Mr Corrigan.