‘Sometimes,’ Kate said quietly. ‘When he had a drink inside him. I mean, he never broke any bones, but he could lash out. Not with the kids, but sometimes with me.’ And the children saw. She pictured them, white, terrified, backed into a corner in the sitting room, watching. Ryan’s nightmares had started about then. The nightmares and the wandering. ‘It was more that he was unpredictable. You never knew from one day to the next what sort of mood he’d be in.’

‘I can see why you’d be relieved that he was dead then.’ Holly sounded perfectly matter-of-fact. And finally she cut a corner off the cake. She looked up. ‘Did Margaret know he had a temper?’

‘I don’t think she ever heard us arguing.’ Thinking back to that time when they’d first moved into the Harbour Guest House, Kate found that she was feeling tense and cold. It was remembering the big house and the kids, and dreading the days when Robbie would come back from the rigs. ‘And I didn’t know her so well then. But she’d have picked up that there was an atmosphere. One day she said to me: “You’re a different woman when Robbie’s away.”’

‘Would you have divorced him if he hadn’t died?’

Kate thought Holly probably didn’t have anyone serious in her life. Otherwise she wouldn’t ask these questions as if there was one simple answer. ‘I’m not sure,’ Kate said in the end. ‘Even when he was angry and restless I felt sorry for him. Responsible. As if he was another kid. And partly I was responsible. If he hadn’t hooked up with me, if I hadn’t dragged him to Mardle, perhaps he could still have had the life he always wanted. The perfect wife and kids, the happy family.’

‘You didn’t consider going back to the music, once he was dead?’

Kate thought about that and tried to answer honestly. ‘I’d lost all my confidence,’ she said. ‘I sang for me and the kids. Taught them to play the piano. But I thought all I was good for was to be a guest-house landlady. Until Stuart came along and persuaded me otherwise. There was no pressure, but he let me believe in myself again.’ As she said the words they sounded like the worst sort of cliché, too cheesy even to use in a song, but still she thought that they were true.

They sat for a moment in silence. Holly stood up. ‘I’m going to have another coffee. Want one?’

Kate nodded.

Then the talk was all about Margaret, and Kate couldn’t decide whether she was pleased or sad about that. ‘Did you get the impression that Margaret had been in an abusive relationship?’ Holly asked. She was very serious now.