‘She was a girl, really. I’d say she was no more than twenty years old. A student type, you know? All dreadlocks and combat trousers she was, and sitting slumped on the floor like she’d not even been taught how to use a chair. Never had a job, you could tell. Never had to work in a call centre selling insurance, that’s for sure.’

‘Did she say much?’

‘“Hi.” That was what she said. And that was said a bit contemptuous, like. As if she’d weighed me up in a glance and thought I was too boring and respectable and hardly worth bothering with. It was a cheek, I thought. I mean, if I’m boring and respectable, then so was Jenny Weston. So what was she doing at Jenny’s house, this Ros?’

‘Did Jenny never explain who she was?’

‘Never. I did to try to ask her next day. Discreetly, like. I asked where Ros was from, and Jenny said from Cheshire. But then she changed the subject straight away, almost as if she’d said too much, though she hadn’t told me anything at all. She didn’t want to talk about her, that was plain. Well, she could be a bit stand-offish when she wanted to, could Jenny. I can’t imagine what she had to do with that girl.’

Fry watched Maggie’s hands moving impatiently. The cat had brought no response. That was no surprise. It was obvious there had never been a pet to disturb the orderly surroundings of Maggie Crew’s apartment.

‘Jenny’s next birthday would have been on the 11th of December,’ she said. ‘She was a Sagittarian. She was interested in horoscopes, too. She wore a chain with a silver star-sign symbol – the archer, half horse and half man. She had made an appointment with her dentist for next Tuesday, because she was worried about a loose filling. Jenny Weston was the sort of person who started buying her Christmas presents early. In fact, she had already bought a cashmere sweater for her mother, and a book on Peak District aircraft wrecks for her father, who used to be in the RAF. She had even bought a toy mouse with a bell on it, for the cat.’

Maggie sighed. ‘Why are you telling me all this? I don’t want to know any of it.’

‘Jenny had taken a week’s holiday from work. It seems she loved the Peak District. But you do, too. Don’t you, Maggie?’

‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Something changed my view.’

‘Well, Jenny must have loved it right up to her last breath. She never learned that disillusionment. She never had the chance.’

‘So?’