While I was digesting the unwelcome fact that my primary source in Middleham had just been permanently eliminated, my phone rang. Marina’s number showed on my caller ID, so I answered it, wondering what I should say to her, but it wasn’t actually her on the line.

‘Hello, Daddy,’ said a nine-year-old voice.

My heart leaped.

‘Hello, Sassy, my darling. Are you having a good time?’

‘Not really. Opa isn’t very well and so I have to be quiet all the time.’

‘I know, but are you being chief nurse?’

‘I’m trying to, but everyone seems so sad. Mummy’s been crying a lot.’

‘Darling, it isn’t easy for Mummy with her daddy being so unwell. So just be a good girl and look after her for me.’

‘Okay,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But can I come home soon? I’m missing Rosie and it’s Annabel’s birthday next week. I just have to go to her party. And she’s getting her own phone as a birthday present.’

Sassy’s sarcastic tone was asking the usual question—why couldn’t she have a phone? It was a subject that had been discussed very regularly in our household.

‘Everyone else has got one,’ she would often whine, even though it wasn’t true. Marina and I had decided that, at nine, she was still too young, but we were swimming against the tide as more and more of her classmates now had them, and Saskia felt she was being left behind.

‘Pleeeeease, Daddy, can I have a phone?’

‘No, darling. Not yet. Annabel is older than you. She’ll be ten next week. So you will have to wait a little longer.’

And Marina and I had secretly decided that twelve would be the best age, although I sometimes felt that we had almost no chance of putting off the inevitable until then.

‘It’s not fair,’ Sassy moaned.

Life’s not fair, I thought. Lose a hand, gain a new one, and then lose your wife. Not fair at all.

‘Can I speak to Mummy, please?’

Marina came on the line.

‘How are things?’ I asked.

‘Not great. I think it’s just a matter of waiting for the inevitable.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘How about you?’

‘I’m okay. A bit lonely. I miss you and Sassy.’

There was a long pause from the other end, and then a sigh. ‘I’m missing you too.’

That was encouraging.

‘Have you found out anything more about the Middleham fire?’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘There have been some happenings that you simply won’t believe.’

I told her about Gary Bremner being found dead and the police believing he had committed suicide. She was shocked.

‘And do you think he killed himself?’

‘Not for one second. When I saw him on Sunday he was determined to catch the bastards responsible for killing his horses. There’s no way he would have just given up.’