‘I have,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know if you’re going to like it. Or maybe you will – depends what angle you’re coming from.’

‘Hit me.’

‘So I asked a couple of friends to ask friends of theirs if they’d heard anything on the vine, like you asked.’

‘Thanks, Kev, appreciate it.’

‘Word is, Josh did borrow money.’

Robin felt a swell of something unfamiliar: hope. ‘When?’

‘That’s the thing. Two and a half years ago, more or less – September ’fourteen.’

‘Who from?’

‘Hold your horses. The thing is, he did borrow, and no doubt at hair-raising rates, but—’

‘How much? Do you know?’

‘Twenty grand.’

‘Hm. But …?’

‘He paid it back, Rob. All of it. The debt was settled fair and square, pleasure doing business with you, sir. No one knows of anyone who was out for him on that score.’

She didn’t like it. Of course Josh could have borrowed from someone else, too, unknown to Kev’s friends of friends, it could be anyone, but it was another dead end. When Kev hung up, she stood for a moment, bereft. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on it, her last iron in the fire.

But as she started to walk it dawned on her that if the loan had closed off one avenue, it had opened another, or at least raised a new question: how had he paid it back? Had the Polish order Kath mentioned covered this twenty K as well as the loan she and Gareth had given them? Robin stopped at the top of Gibb Street to send two messages, one after the other. By the time she reached the car, she had replies. Our loan was 3 yrs ago, paid back 6 months later w money from Polish order. Then, No inheritance or insurance pay-outs. Don’t think they had anything worth 20K to sell.

She opened the door and got in, giving Maggie a nothing-to-see-here smile.

She eyed her. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Me? That was school, about Len’s inoculations paperwork.’

A single upward move of the head, Sure.

Robin started the engine. ‘Valerie’s?’

‘Yep.’