Val settled back on the sofa and her eyes were half-closed. ‘Maggie thought she was better than the rest of us. She hated being called Maggie, and I only did it to spite her. She had a fancy accent and fancy clothes. I said to her once: “We’re alike, you and me. Both left by our men to fend for ourselves.” The look that she gave me! As if I wasn’t fit to clean her boots.’

‘Had you seen her recently?’ Joe wondered where this story was taking him. He still wasn’t convinced that something that had happened almost forty years ago could have any relevance to the present investigation. He didn’t believe in the body under the boatyard.

‘Nah! I didn’t see her much after that photo was taken. There was a falling-out.’ She paused, drank more of the tea. ‘Things were never really the same after that.’

‘What do you mean?’ Outside, the postman walked down the street. The last delivery before Christmas, his bag fat and heavy. Val saw him too and watched. A moment of hope or anticipation. But he walked straight past her door.

Val lifted her shoulders, an attempt at a shrug. ‘Nothing. Just that she never came into the pub again.’

‘What sort of falling-out?’

‘How would I remember after all this time?’ She glared at him, challenging him to contradict her.

Joe thought she remembered perfectly. ‘Did something happen the night of Billy Kerr’s birthday party?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She shut her mouth like a toddler refusing to eat her vegetables and they sat for a moment in silence.

‘Did you ever meet Margaret’s husband, Pawel?’

She shook her head. Her hair was very fine and she was bald in places. ‘He’d long gone by the time we moved to Harbour Street.’

Joe thought that in that case Vera couldn’t be right. If Pawel was buried under Malcolm Kerr’s yard, he must have been in Harbour Street the night of the fire. ‘Are you sure? Our information is that he was still in the region then.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe he was, but he wasn’t living with Maggie Krukowski.’

‘Was Margaret working for Billy and Malcolm Kerr when this photo was taken?’ Joe thought it was hard work, prising information from the woman, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. He was wondering now why he’d come. He wished he was at Kerr’s yard watching the search team. He’d trained with a couple of the lads and it would have been good to catch up.

Val made a strange choking sound that was half-cough and half-chuckle. ‘By the time I knew her she was what you’d call freelance. A professional working woman.’ Each word came out as a separate sneer.

‘What do you mean?’ Joe pretended ignorance.