‘You said you didn’t have enough information. Insufficient evidence. You needed me to make an identification.’

‘There are other leads we can follow.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No. You’re lying to me now.’

As if on a signal, they walked in step towards the Cat Stones. Maggie’s footsteps became slower as they reached them. Imperceptibly, she seemed to have moved nearer to Fry, until their elbows were touching, making contact for mutual reassurance.

‘I would have brought you here, Maggie,’ said Fry.

‘You don’t understand. I wanted to do it on my own.’

Fry nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I can see that.’

‘Can you? You wanted me to share everything with you, all my memories. But there are things I can’t share.’ Her eyes went distant again. ‘Tell me,’ she said. They were the words that Fry feared to hear from her. ‘Tell me, why did you have an abortion?’

‘Because I didn’t want the baby,’ said Fry. ‘Obviously.’

They stopped by the Cat Stones. They were lumbering great rocks, precariously balanced on smaller, softer slabs of gritstone that had been worn away by the weather and shaped like the back-jointed rear legs of an animal. The rocks crouched like leaping cats – or so local folklore said. Maybe they were leaping at the tower, determined to knock it from its perch.

‘But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’

Maggie touched one of the stones gently, as if she hoped to make it move with the lightest brush of her fingers. ‘Was it rape?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘But you never talk about it, do you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Bottled up. Is that the best way?’

‘I don’t talk about it,’ said Fry firmly.

‘But it’s a denial,’ said Maggie. ‘A sort of lie that you’re living.’

They were in the right spot. This was the place they had identified as the location of the assault on Maggie Crew – the brief, horrific attack that had left her disfigured. They had found little forensic evidence, nothing that could have led them to the identity of an assailant. There were no witnesses except Maggie herself. And no trace of a motive.

‘You can’t live your life by lies,’ said Maggie.

Then Maggie Crew began to laugh. Fry was mortified that her confession should be treated with hilarity. Then she began to get angry.

‘What’s so funny?’

Maggie put her hand on Fry’s arm to support herself. Her laughter bounced off the Cat Stones and seemed to drift off down the valley towards Matlock.

‘It doesn’t matter, Diane,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

She looked to be about to start chuckling again. Fry pulled away abruptly.

‘You’re getting a bit hysterical. Let’s go down. It was a mistake to come up here.’

‘Perhaps it was,’ agreed Maggie.

‘You’re doing yourself no good.’ Fry shivered. ‘Besides, I’m getting cold.’