‘Not straight away.’ Kate was defensive. How could she make this modern and confident young woman understand? ‘And when we were first married I was happy to take things easy for a bit. I loved the business, but it was tough. The travelling. The pressure of media stuff. I missed the performing, though. That response you get from an audience. Stuart, my new bloke, set up a gig for me in a little theatre in Whitley Bay a month ago and it was fantastic to be onstage again. Addictive.’

She paused, remembering the event. A middle-aged audience who’d still remembered her hits, who’d got to their feet and cheered a couple of bars into the intro. Who’d queued up afterwards to buy the new CD that Stuart and a couple of his friends had helped her to produce.

But Holly was still waiting for the end of the story.

‘When we had the kids I couldn’t tour any more and the bookings dried up. It’s a fickle business. You’re quickly forgotten.’

‘Couldn’t your husband do some of the childcare?’ Again Holly looked at her as if she were mad. ‘Or you could have hired a nanny.’

‘Robbie was an engineer,’ Kate said. ‘And that was before the time we talked much about work–life balance.’ She smiled at the idea of Robbie managing two small kids in the morning. Breakfast and the school run. Of Robbie joining in with ‘Wheels on the Bus’ at the toddlers’ group, making small talk about breastfeeding and house prices with the other parents.

‘So you just gave it all up? All your ambitions and your dreams?’

‘Not consciously. They just kind of slipped away. And I loved Robbie. I thought it was admirable that he wanted to care for us.’

She paused. Now she was coming to the difficult part of the story. She could just stop there, of course. It was none of this detective’s business after all. What did Kate’s private life have to do with the murder of Margaret Krukowski? But after all these years she wanted to tell it – she’d started now.