‘Certainly it is. In case you’ve forgotten, Nick was murdered. I found his body. And if I ring the police now, and tell them that I’ve remembered seeing you coming out of his place shortly before the murder, they are going to wonder why, after the appeals they put out in the media for anyone who knew him to come forward, you kept silent.’

It had only been a hunch really, that Verbena had been to visit Nick, that she wasn’t using the alley as a shortcut, like everyone else. But the look of horror frozen on her face as she slowly gazed at me confirmed that I was right.

‘Oh, God!’ she moaned.

‘Just tell me, Verbena,’ I repeated, this time more gently. When she didn’t speak, I prompted her. ‘Was it something to do with the earrings?’

Her blue eyes filled with tears. ‘They were never stolen,’ she admitted in a tiny voice. ‘I thought they were, I really did! And the cash was taken. I put in a claim on the insurance but the company wouldn’t pay out because there’d been no break-in. I’d left the door unlocked so they said it was down to my own negligence.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, they were right about that, I suppose, but they made me feel as if I’d made the whole thing up just to claim the insurance money.’

‘Were the earrings very valuable, then?’

‘Neil had them made especially for me. They were insured for fifteen grand.’

She hesitated. ‘And then, a few days later, more cash went missing. And this time I knew no one had been in the house, except’ − she stared fixedly down at her hands, her slender fingers knotted together − ‘except the girls.’

‘Your daughters?’

She nodded, her head hung low. ‘Then the earrings mysteriously reappeared in the dish they had been taken from. Amelia tried to claim that she’d only borrowed them to wear to a party, that she’d even asked my permission. But I knew she’d taken them, and then got scared when I called in the police and the insurers.’

‘And the money?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that was just spite.’ She gnawed at her lower lip. ‘Apparently, their father encourages the girls to steal from me. He tells them the money is really his and they’re doing him a favour.’ She returned her gaze to my face. ‘Now you’re wondering why I sacked you.’

I waited.

‘God, Juno, it was all so embarrassing!’ she burst out. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of having to admit to you what had really happened.’

‘But you didn’t have to,’ I protested. ‘I’d have accepted that you’d found your earrings, that they weren’t stolen after all. Anyone can make a mistake.’

She eyed me dubiously. ‘What about the money?’