The process was a frustrating one. Convinced that the book did have secrets to yield, she went through the entries in much more detail than the night before. Starting at the point where she and Carole had begun to flick through the pages to pick up again in October, she checked out everything in the intervening months. But it was all more of the same. Records of cars due to be picked up for service, with little notes like ‘brakes making a clicking noise’, ‘smell of oil’ and so on. Reminders of parts to be ordered, upcoming MOTs, dates of VAT quarters, invoices to slow payers that had to be chased up.

There were a few notes taken of web addresses, but those Jude checked out on her laptop were all garage-related, dealers of cars and parts for them.

Still, the only entries that didn’t conform remained the timed references to ‘H’ and the one timed MOT. Though she was coming round to Carole’s view that there was nothing sinister about the latter.

Jude checked her watch. Twenty-five past ten. She had heard the Renault arrive next door some quarter of an hour before, but knew that Carole wouldn’t arrive until the dot of the appointed hour. That was just how Carole Seddon worked.

Oh, well, might be worth having another look at the entries right at the beginning of the diary. They’d flicked fairly randomly through February and March, at that stage just trying to establish how Bill had organized the contents.

On the first page she saw something that hadn’t caught their attention before. Through the crossing-out, it read: ‘Organize insurance on SAAB for M.’

Car-related yes – that’s why it hadn’t registered – but personal too. He must have started this particular diary almost immediately after he’d come back from Thailand with his new bride-to-be. And he needed to add her to the insurance so that she could drive his car. Presumably until he’d organized another vehicle for her personal use.

OK, not of major importance but intriguing. Jude looked with renewed interest at the next couple of pages.

And she saw another entry that wasn’t work-related. Scratched through with a dash of biro, it still read quite clearly, ‘Get bait for Sunday.’

Just at that moment, the front doorbell rang and she let Carole in. Before even offering coffee, she pointed out her discovery.

‘I don’t see why that’s so important,’ said Carole, a little sniffily.

‘It’s important because I remember Rhona telling me that every Sunday Bill used to go fishing with his mate Red.’

‘Oh, really?’

Jude couldn’t imagine why her neighbour was looking so uncomfortable.