‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not how it would be. I’d be careful. Nobody would know about my personal connection to the case. And we would only issue proceedings when – if – we had the evidence. Which we might never have. Or we might find out that somebody else was responsible. We’d have to be prepared for that to happen.’

‘I see what you’re saying,’ Ann said. ‘Though it’s not what I expected from you. After what you found out today, I expected you to be …’

‘Looking through the photos?’ I asked.

‘I suppose,’ she said.

‘Not my style,’ I said. ‘I wish it was. I might be more well adjusted.’

‘You’re all right, girl,’ Ann said. ‘Don’t run yourself down.’

The sudden kindness unmoored me. For a moment, all I wanted was to find a dark place and sleep for a week.

The moment passed.

‘Ann, this is what I know how to do. It’s all I know. In my job, I look for cause and fault and blame, for the thread that runs through things. I mightn’t find every answer, but I’ll find some, I’m sure I will.’

‘I kept a lot of it from Sean,’ Ann said. ‘How much she’d changed, and it’s all a muddle in my head what happened, so long ago, only yesterday too it seems like …’

‘I know you say it’s all a muddle,’ I said. ‘But it’s my role to sort through it for you.’

After a long silence, while the tap dripped and the ancient fridge groaned, Ann spoke.

‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll go with it,’ she said. ‘For a while, anyway. See what progress you make. But I want to make one thing clear before we start. We’re not taking any stupid risks. Sean might sell the house to fund a case, but I won’t. Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is. But we have to live somewhere, if you’d call it living. The guilt never goes, Finn. I keep thinking, even still, that I could have stopped it if I’d done something, if I’d known what was in her head, if I’d picked up on the signals. Don’t say anything, none of the stuff about it not being my fault. It’s what people say, and I’m worn out from hearing it, from telling it to myself and not believing. Makes no difference.’

‘Tell me what you remember,’ I said. ‘No matter how silly or insignificant it seems.’