‘I know, love. I know. Come on, now. Don’t let that idiot get to you. It’s pointless because he was talking rubbish. Probably fancied a drive on a nice day and thought hassling you was one way to justify it. What you need is a good strong cuppa.’ Sophie, filling the kettle, prattled on, though Tilly hardly heard her commentary: behind her anger and bewilderment, and the reopened wound of her grief, it had occurred to her to wonder why, two years after the event the police should suddenly suspect the veracity of the inquest’s findings.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. At one moment Tilly would find herself standing with a plate or a sheet in her hand, stalled like a rundown wind-up toy while her mind went over and over that morning’s meeting, analysing the sergeant’s words and his hard, inquisitive eyes. Next she would be at the sink with no memory of the interim period, or rubbing furiously at a spot on the table, reliving it all again. The moment, indelibly stamped on her memory, when she’d stepped from the companionway onto the deck and had seen the bright bundle that was Francie falling overboard. And being plunged back into the useless self-recriminations that had accompanied her mourning.

If only she hadn’t left the deck to step below! Or that she had returned five seconds earlier. If only she’d learnt to steer and work a boat – she and Gerry had been married four years, for God’s sake, and the boat was their livelihood. But she’d never been more than a day passenger on the Esmerelda. She’d just coasted along, leaving everything to him, and her ignorance had contributed to their deaths.

Once upon a time, before that dreadful day, she had been a mother, a wife. She had been happy – and then in the blink of an eye everything had changed.

Sometime during the afternoon Matt returned with a cooler of meat. Tilly put the kettle on for him, then in the same mechanical fashion with her mind elsewhere, sliced and cubed and bagged the hunks of flesh for the freezer.

‘Everything okay, Tilly?’ Matt’s forehead creased as he watched her. ‘You’re very quiet.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said brightly. ‘So how were things at the station? Who did you see?’

‘Pretty busy, actually. The stockyard was full of horses. I expect they’ll be mustering soon. I spoke to Bruce, and the cook. He’s new – a bit strange, I thought. Mad-looking eyes. Talked non-stop. Only got one hand too.’

‘Really? How does he manage?’

Matt shrugged. ‘He seems to get along. He’s got some sort of a fist fitted to the stump, inside a glove, like.’