‘Just that she needed to talk to you,’ said Beverley.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why she didn’t trust her phone?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t ask,’ said Beverley. ‘I told them you’d pop in as soon as you got back.’

Bromyard to Rushpool is half an hour by car, and I knew the route well enough to do that automatic thing when you start preparing for turn offs before your conscious mind has registered where you are. Third exit at the roundabout where me and Beverly had paraded past the locals, left at the next roundabout to cut through Leominster past the Dale factory where the half of Dominic’s family who didn’t work as cab drivers were gainfully employed bashing metal into structural members. My interview with Zoe had taken long enough that, by the time I reached the turn-off into Rushwater Lane just past Lucton, the sun was starting to flirt with the horizon. I drove up past the village pond and the Swan Inn, past the church, and then left into the Marstowes’ cul-de-sac.

Andy opened the door – which surprised me.

‘Yeah,’ he said when he saw it was me. ‘You’d better come in.’

He led me back to the kitchen where Joanne was staring out the back window to where Hannah was playing with her brothers. Ethan was sitting primly in his high chair, his little pink fists waving in cheerful anticipation. He gave me a hopeful look, no doubt believing that my presence signalled the imminent arrival of dinner – or at least the start of the floor show.

‘If I told you something crazy,’ Joanne said without looking round, ‘would you believe me?’

‘It depends on how crazy,’ I said.

Andy stepped up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, and she put her hand over his.

Does he know? I wondered. That his wife’s been banging Derek Lacey for over a decade and – if I’m any judge of body language – still is? Or maybe he does know, and this is one of those weird unspoken arrangements that nobody ever speaks about.

Joanne turned and let Andy put his arm around her shoulder. Behind her, through the window, I saw Hannah scramble to catch a ball thrown by one of her brothers.

‘What if somebody thought that somebody was not the person you thought they were?’ she asked.

I glanced back out the window at Hannah.

‘Not Hannah,’ said Andy.

‘Nicole?’ I asked, not liking where this was going at all.

Joanne nodded.

Ethan started yelling – the floor show having been a bit of a disappointment.