‘Tell me,’ he says, watching as her eyes lift to meet his – soft brown eyes, dusty lashes. ‘Which of you is the piano-player?’

An instant flush in those pale cheeks, and she draws her hands back from the table, flustered. ‘Oh, that’s me, sorry. God, I’m embarrassed.’

‘Don’t be!’

‘No, really, if I’d known you could hear …’

‘Please,’ he says, taking the liberty of reaching forward to tap her wrist – lightly, briefly, but the thrill of her skin beneath his touch! He forces himself to sit back, not to frighten her.

‘Charlotte used to play the piano. My wife,’ he explains. ‘It was a great pleasure to listen to her. I always feel that a house needs music to give it a heart. Do you know what I mean?’

She nods, but tension remains in her shoulders.

‘I used to love coming up those stone steps after a day at the office, and hearing the piano before I’d even put the key in the lock!’ He smiles and shakes his head, as if it were a fond memory. ‘Her piano is still upstairs. A very fine baby grand.’

‘My piano teacher had a baby grand. Not in her practice rooms, but in her home. She used to let me call over there sometimes and play. I loved it.’

‘Well, you must come upstairs and play my piano sometime.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t.’

‘Of course you could,’ he says plainly, openly, and he can see the want in her.

It’s all about finding the way in.

‘I used to say to Charlotte that when the kids had grown up and we were retired, we should move down here to the basement flat, let Mark or Cassandra take the house upstairs. We used to talk about it, Charlotte and I – about how wonderful it would be to have our grandchildren living upstairs, playing in the garden beyond our back door. And she was insistent that when that day came the piano would move downstairs with us. That was non-negotiable, as far as she was concerned.’ He laughs, allowing the sound to trail off wistfully. ‘The best laid plans …’ he says.

‘I heard that she died,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’

A coldness lodges in his chest, like indigestion. ‘It was a long time ago now.’

‘Even so you must miss her,’ she adds. ‘Charlotte.’

How strange it is to hear his wife’s name on her lips. But stranger still is the emotion it stokes. It’s not expected that he should miss Charlotte. After what happened. Assumptions were made after the arrest, assumptions that hardened into fact after the conviction. That he hadn’t loved her. That he had brutalized her. It seemed an aberration to miss the one you were thought to have murdered.