It was Lennon. He followed Alice back into the kitchen and Helen saw him take in with interest the sight of Georgia sitting at their kitchen table. Georgia stood up immediately and put on her denim jacket. ‘Anyway. I better get going. I only came over to see if Alice wanted to come to Kingston with us.’

Georgia vanished out of the kitchen before Helen had the chance to say goodbye, Alice close behind her.

‘Something I said?’ Patrick Lennon asked, raising his eyebrow. He sat down at the kitchen table uninvited, which irritated Helen slightly, although she made sure not to let it show.

‘I doubt it. That’s teenagers for you. Tea?’ Helen asked.

‘Thanks. No sugar, please.’ He took out a black Moleskine notebook – rather poncy for a copper, thought Helen.

‘Is Sean about? I need both of you for this – and Alice, if that’s OK,’ he added, as Alice returned, hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

‘He’s upstairs. I’ll get him,’ she said, retreating. ‘Da-ad!’ they heard her shout up the stairs.

‘He’s probably in his study,’ Helen said. ‘I haven’t seen him all morning.’ She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice. She yearned for Sean’s support, to feel that they were in this hideous nightmare as a team, bonded together as tightly as two halves of a walnut in its shell – but Sean had retreated from her, emotionally and physically, to the point that she almost felt she had lost a husband as well as a daughter. He always had been a bit of a tortoise, retracting his neck into a silent unreachable place as a response to difficult emotional situations. Helen supposed she thought, when they met, that she could change him.

Every woman always thinks that, she thought now. And they never can.

Alice’s footsteps stomping back down the stairs were joined by Sean’s quieter ones. Helen took out two more mugs and re-boiled the kettle.

‘DI Lennon just wants to ask us a few more questions,’ she said to him, taking in his unshaven, grey face and bed-head hair, even though it was ten thirty and he’d been up for hours – his side of the bed had been empty since about six A.M. Her heart squeezed with pity for him, forcing herself to understand that he felt as bad as she did. He just showed it in different ways.

‘Yeah, I know,’ he replied shortly. ‘Alice told me.’

‘Sorry we’re not dressed,’ Helen said. She felt embarrassed at the state of both of them – Alice was the only one who looked halfway presentable.