‘We need a chat,’ she said. Then, feeling hungry again, remembering the smell of toast: ‘Is there anywhere we can get some breakfast?’ Now that it had come to it, she was reluctant to take him to the police station just yet, to start the formal process that would lead to his arrest.

They ate sausage sandwiches in a greasy spoon on the road out of town. A steaming tea urn and a couple of German lorry drivers at the table by the counter. Vera sat Malcolm near the window.

‘Margaret Krukowski was a prostitute,’ she said. ‘You didn’t think it was important to tell me?’

‘No.’

Vera thought Malcolm was like a boy who hadn’t quite grown up. ‘I didn’t want her memory dirtied by that sort of talk.’

‘But she was a prostitute?’ Vera tried to catch his eye, but he was staring out of the window at the passing traffic.

‘Not like Dee Robson,’ he said immediately. His face was red, indignant. ‘Not cheap, tarting herself around the pubs. She had men friends and they paid towards her expenses. She had to live, she said. Once Pawel had left, and my dad let her go from working for us. And she’d always enjoyed the company of men.’

She enjoyed sex, Vera thought, but you can’t bring yourself to say that.

‘You can’t have liked it, though.’ She leaned forward across the table, where the remains of their breakfast lay. ‘The thought of her going with other men. You loved her.’

‘But she didn’t love me.’ His voice was so quiet that if she hadn’t been so close to him she wouldn’t have heard. ‘I had to come to terms with that years before.’

There was a moment of silence. The German drivers clattered through the door, letting in a blast of icy air.

‘Margaret was going to leave you some money,’ Vera said. ‘Enough for a decent car, at least. But she was killed before she signed the will.’

‘I didn’t know anything about that! And I didn’t want her money!’

‘Did she ask you to keep an eye out for Dee once she was gone?’

Malcolm’s gaze slid away from her. ‘Aye.’

‘And you said you would?’ He didn’t answer and Vera continued. ‘Of course you did. You couldn’t deny her anything. Would you have kept your promise, though? Not an easy woman to keep track of, Dee Robson?’

He shrugged. ‘I’d have done my best.’

‘But now the woman’s dead, you don’t have to.’ Vera wiped the grease from her mouth. ‘Must be a relief.’

‘I wouldn’t kill the woman because she was a bit of a nuisance!’ He’d raised his voice and the woman behind the counter was staring.