‘He knew my grandmother, Joy Papplewick.’ That produced a definite flicker of interest, so I pressed on. ‘Our family are trying to piece together some of the missing chapters in her early life, and we knew she’d become friends with Tony when he spent time with her gathering information for an article.’

‘When was this?’

‘In 1961.’

‘Before I’d met him. He was probably engaged to his first wife, Eliza, around then.’

‘I’d love to hear more about him, if you had time to chat for a few minutes?’ I asked, plastering on my best TV smile and looking hopefully at the corridor behind her. ‘We’ve come quite a long way.’

She pursed her lips, considering this until Henry interjected with a brainwave: ‘I’m sure Joy would be extremely grateful. We’ll be sure to tell her how helpful you were.’

‘I suppose you’d better come in, then. I’m not making a drink, though. I don’t touch the kettle after six.’

‘Thank you so much. I’m Bea, and this is Henry.’

‘Pat. Please wipe your feet on the mat and take your shoes off.’

She waited while we did just that, then showed us into a modest-sized living room. I wasn’t quite sure why I’d asked to come in. Pat clearly didn’t know anything about Nana Joy or her baby. Only – if Tony had known he was the father, there was a chance he’d told his wife. Even if he’d merely had a love affair with Joy, wasn’t that the kind of memory people would share at some point?

‘Did he never talk about Joy, or mention that he knew her?’ I asked, taking a seat on the threadbare sofa.

‘He was a showbiz journalist. He knew a lot of famous people. I can’t remember him specifically mentioning her, though.’

Could that be significant, that he didn’t mention her when he’d spent all that time in her company? It didn’t feel like an appropriate question to ask his widow, however.

‘Was Tony the kind of person who kept hold of items from his past? We found this house because Joy has a letter he wrote her. Maybe she wrote back?’

‘Even if he had kept them, after all these years there’s nothing left of his now.’

Rather than sitting down, Henry had been ambling about the living room. He stopped now, and pointed at a photograph on a side table. ‘Is this him?’

Pat glanced up. ‘No. That’s my brother.’

‘Do you have any photographs we could look at?’

‘And then we’ll get out of your way,’ I added, hoping that would work as an incentive.

‘The old ones are in there.’ She nodded at a sturdy sideboard, directing Henry to one of the cupboards where he found a neat stack of photograph albums.

‘The green one at the bottom. There might be something in there.’