She took a deep breath now, made herself exhale slowly. Hidden by the dark, she acknowledged it, the other thing that had bound them together, she, Josh and Corinna, never spoken about but always there, the fuse on everything they’d accomplished since. Had someone found out? Was that possible after all these years? Eighteen years – before Lennie, before Peter, any of it. If so, why now? What had changed?

You moved yesterday.

And she’d been in the papers – someone could have seen the photo, recognized her … No – she ordered herself to stop. That way madness lay; a spiralling nightmare.

There was so much she didn’t know, all of it essential for building a picture of what had happened. The effort it had taken not to ring the number on DS Thomas’s card, try and glean new crumbs. By now, the initial house-to-house would be long done, and the search of the immediate area. They’d be looking at CCTV, checking speed cameras. Anyone driving away from the house had to use either the A38 or Pershore Road and there’d be cameras there – they were both routes in and out of the city centre. The time-window was three and a half hours, ten o’clock to half past one; it wouldn’t take very long to find out what time Josh’s car had left, and in which direction.

Who else would they have spoken to? Di and Will, of course, and they’d have family liaison there. Gerry, Josh’s dad, and his sister, Kath. Poor Gerry – he was fragile anyway since the stroke, and a widower. What would it do to him, knowing that Josh was a suspect – the suspect? Josh, Kath and the grandchildren were everything to him. And to Rin; he’d been the dad she never had.

Robin pulled Lennie closer, breathed her in. Corinna would never cuddle Peter again – never put her arms round him and pretend to crush him while he pretended he wanted to get away. He was ten, just turned – his birthday was at the beginning of January. He’d asked for a Star Wars Lego kit and a trip to WaterWorld in Stoke. ‘Thank Christ it isn’t Alton Towers,’ Corinna had said on the phone. ‘I’d have to be tranquillized to get on one of those rides. Oblivion, Nemesis – I feel sick on the bloody spinning teacups.’ She would have done it, though, even if it had taken a general anaesthetic; she’d have done anything for Peter. Not overindulgence – he wasn’t spoiled or allowed to run wild on a diet of TV and processed sugar – but attention, fun, structure, family. Proper care. Corinna had been a great mother – way better than she was. It’s not fair, Robin wanted to shout; you fucking bastard, whoever you are, it’s not fair. Why did it have to be her?