‘Jenny was studying to be a radiologist,’ he said. ‘She was already in the third year of her course, and doing really well. She could have had a good career ahead of her, if it hadn’t been for Stafford. She met him in a pub in Derby, and he made a beeline for her. She was an attractive girl. And far too trusting.’

‘What happened?’

‘She became completely besotted with him. She wouldn’t listen to us when we told her to put her studies first, that her own career was more important. In the end, she gave up her studies to marry Stafford when he asked her to. She said she wanted to start a family with him. We had to accept it.’

‘But you said there were no children?’

‘No children. Only divorce.’

Even the divorce had come only after a series of short-lived reconciliations which were, according to Jenny’s father, simply Martin Stafford’s demonstrations of his ability to manipulate their daughter. He had some inexplicable power over her, and he was reluctant to give it up. The situation dragged on for a long time, painfully and unsatisfactorily.

‘When it was all over, Jenny managed to get a job with Global Assurance in Derby,’ said Mr Weston. ‘But then she had to move to their new call centre when it was built in Sheffield. We didn’t like it. It meant she was away from us, away from her family. She went to live alone in that little terraced house off the Ecclesall Road. It was too far away. All she had with her was her blessed cat, not even a dog. Her mother was very upset. She worried about what might happen to her. We both did.’

‘You were worried that Mr Stafford might try to get back in touch with her?’

‘Yes, of course. And that we wouldn’t know about it. Anything could have happened.’

‘But it didn’t.’

‘Well . . . not so far as we know.’

Mr Weston tried to recall a quick succession of boyfriends after Jenny had moved to Sheffield. All of them, he was sure, were men who were completely wrong for her. To Ben Cooper, Jenny sounded as though she had gone through those men like a woman looking for something she would never find, a woman whose better judgement had been cast aside. For what? A kind of penance? At one point, there had been an abortion. Jenny had not told her father at the time. His wife had told him about it, much later.

‘That was something I could never understand,’ he said. He shook his head, and Cooper saw the glitter of tears in the teacher’s eyes. ‘I never will understand it. Jenny always wanted children.’