What they were, all of them, was rich. The Shorelands Estate, built along the coast to the west of Fethering in the 1950s, was highly sought-after. The residents were people of the professional classes – solicitors, doctors, dentists, a few retired diplomats and naval officers. The houses, all huge, were built in a variety of architectural styles – or it might be more accurate to say ‘based’ on a variety of architectural styles. Black-beamed early Tudor, fancy-bricked Elizabethan, geometrical Georgian, villa-style Victorian were all represented. Thatched roofs were juxtaposed by Mediterranean terracotta tiles. Italian pergolas vied with Spanish wrought iron.

Jude always found the ambience claustrophobic. The residents thought they had inherited the earth and all that was beautiful in it. They were not people who ever doubted their own entitlement.

She had heard that certainty in the voice of the woman who had summoned her to the Shorelands Estate earlier in the day. Natalie Kendrick was the name announced on the phone. She had heard Jude’s services praised by ‘people round the village’ (though she didn’t name any names) and she would like her to ‘take a look at my son’ to see if she could ‘do something for him’. The request was made in the manner of someone ordering curtain fabric, and Jude had been initially tempted to refuse it. But her instinct for helping people in trouble – not to mention her natural curiosity – found her magnetically drawn to the Shorelands Estate.

Troubadours occupied one of the favoured plots whose garden gave access on to the beach. Its architectural style was 1930s seaside villa, white-painted with curved walls and metal-framed windows, reminiscent of an ocean-going liner. On the gravel drive stood a Land Rover Discovery and another red car that Jude recognized as a Triumph Tr6. (This familiarity did not reflect any knowledge of cars, just the fact that she’d had a brief affair with a man who’d owned one. His pride and joy. She had very rarely been allowed to drive it – usually when he’d had too much to drink – but she had enjoyed its power. The man in question had turned out to be the kind who was much more interested in cars than he was in women. The Triumph was flashy, unsubtle and unreliable. Which, given its owner, had been – she realized later – entirely appropriate.)

The top half of Troubadours’ front door was coloured glass, dark blue for the sea, light blue for the sky, with a white yacht nearly keeling over at their intersection. Jude rang the bell and the speed with which it was answered suggested that Natalie Kendrick had been waiting for her.