‘You have to stop, Mum, there’s no room.’

‘I have stopped now I’ve decided what I’m doing with your gran’s money.’

‘Okay …’

‘But why did she do that, Meg? She had that money and she never told us.’

I filled the kettle and sat down opposite her. ‘I don’t know, Mum. It makes no sense to me either. Maybe she wanted to leave it to us rather than have us spend it on her. That would be like Gran.’

‘All that time we were fretting about paying for care for her, or the cost of taking her to Dignitas, and she had thousands squirrelled away. She can’t have spent any money. Ever. In her entire life.’

‘We should have taken her,’ I said. ‘We knew it was best for her. I’m sure she only said she’d changed her mind to save us the grief of taking her and getting into trouble.’

‘You’re right. I hate myself for putting her through it.’

‘Me too.’ If there was guilt to be shared out, I was having my bit.

Mum sighed. ‘At least you have some money towards a deposit on a house.’

‘I’ll have to put a plaque up outside, or a memorial bench.’

The kettle pinged so I made myself tea, grabbed a pack of biscuits, and sat back down. Mum might be letting her garden go, but if the biscuit cupboard was ever empty then I’d know she was in real trouble.

Normally she’d be grilling me by now. Asking about work. ‘I’m on that case,’ I said. ‘You know, at the abattoir in Gritton.’ What a fine conversation-starter. Straight out of the book, How to Deal with a Grieving Parent. Serial killer on the loose, feeding victims to pigs. Although I had read that the emphasis on positive thinking was making us more depressed.

‘Oh, how awful,’ Mum said. ‘It was on the news. Aren’t they killing animals every night until you solve it? Terrible business.’

She obviously hadn’t seen my performance at the press conference. Part of me felt petulant about this. Wanted to say, I was on TV, Mum. Aren’t you impressed? But another part was relieved she hadn’t seen. I didn’t want sympathy about the veggie-detective accusations, speculation on what a pack of hungry pigs could do.

‘And how’s Jai? Still with that girl?’

‘He is, although he does spend every day moaning about their incompatibility. She doesn’t like his kids but she wants him to have more with her.’

‘Oh heavens. Poor Jai.’

‘I know. I shouldn’t laugh.’

‘Some people just like being unhappy,’ Mum said.

‘You have to wonder. Given that his previous wife was a social-climbing monster. He must surely have seen through her before they stuck rings on each other.’

‘He was probably pressurised into getting married by his family.’