‘If it’s what you’re thinking of doing,’ he said smoothly. ‘If there’s a chance you can still sort it out, don’t wreck it.’

What was it to him? Unless he wanted her gone, of course, safely back in London and off his ground. Which was a strong possibility.

‘I’m asking you to trust Webster and his team,’ he said. ‘My lot. Me. I understand that it must be very hard.’ For five or six seconds, there was silence on the line, the unspoken drowning them out. ‘So I’ll tell you two things. First, DS Thomas has been following up on the loan. She’s excellent, as I’m sure you saw when you met her, and she’s found no evidence that Josh had outstanding debts, kosher or otherwise.’

‘But …’

‘Second, we’ve had the PM back.’

Robin’s heart made a single hard beat, like a kick on the inside. ‘And?’

‘You promise this’ll go no further? I can trust you?’

‘You’ve always been able to trust me, Samir.’

The scratch of shoes on a rough surface, a soft fabric crumple. She imagined him on a bench, leaning forward, looking at his feet. ‘Rin was dead before the fire started. I wanted you to know that so you didn’t have to imagine …’

‘How?’

‘Head injury. Blunt force.’

She closed her eyes. ‘How many blows?’

‘Just one, at the temple. It matches the shape of the brass table lamp they had in the sitting room, the square base. Robin, there’s just no evidence that anyone else was involved.’

She turned to go back inside but when she reached the front door, she sat down on the step instead. Chest aching, eyes unfocused, she stared unseeing at the same bit of the path until Lennie came to find her. ‘Mum, you’re frozen! Come in.’

Should she tell her about the post mortem? Could she stand to let her imagine the violence, Josh swinging a table lamp at Rin’s head? But then, what was she imagining now? Rin burning alive, in agony?

She told her, and Christine, too, who was folding sheets in the utility room, and whose expression went from tight disapproval through apprehension to pained horror in the few seconds it took to say it. ‘Oh, love.’ She dropped the sheet into the laundry basket and took a step forward. For a moment, Robin thought she was going to hug her but then her mother reached out a hand and gave her a sort of pat, a double-tap on her shoulder, there there.