‘The truth is, since that weird run-in with Ben on Thursday night, some things have happened and . . . I’ve found out some other things that I didn’t know before.’

‘Such as?’ Naylor said.

It wasn’t something I wanted to say out loud in front of strangers: saying it made it real, official somehow, while it still felt very much to me like it was in the realm of the unreal. It would mean the story of Mel’s betrayal would be recorded on tape, maybe forever. The red light on Naylor’s Dictaphone blinked on-off-on-off.

‘What did you find out, Joe?’ Naylor repeated, sitting forward in his chair.

My hands were shaking. I clasped them in my lap.

‘Him and Mel. They were . . . involved.’

Naylor waited for a few seconds before he spoke again.

‘Involved in what way?’

‘An affair. He pursued her for ages and she finally gave in a few months ago. It’s been going on since the summer.’

‘And you discovered this on Thursday evening?’

‘No. Well, kind of. It was yesterday that I found out, but Thursday was the first sign I had that something strange was going on. That’s where it started.’

‘Tell me how it happened.’

I gestured to the forms that Redford had produced from her brown manila file.

‘It’s in there, in my statement. Most of it, anyway.’

‘Tell me in your own words.’

And so I told him. From Thursday night until today, how it had all gone down – including Beth Delaney’s revelation in the pub yesterday and her husband being on the loose with one of his shotguns. Naylor listened to the whole sorry tale, nodding from time to time, his face impassive as Redford made notes alongside the form I recognised from Saturday, the statement I’d made to PC Khan. I told them everything as quickly as possible, trying to get it over with, and when the story was finished he gave me a moment before continuing.

‘What we do with a missing persons case like this, Joe, is try to establish a timeline of a person’s movements and activities. We take the timeline as far as we can, and see where it stops. Along with other information, that gives us a framework of facts to work with. These are the notes taken by PC Khan when he interviewed you and Mrs Lynch on Saturday afternoon.’ He turned pages in his folder, found the one he was looking for. ‘So before this morning at the country park, Thursday was definitely the last time you saw Ben?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how exactly did you part company? On friendly terms?’

‘No.’

‘Explain.’

‘I reversed into his car. He wasn’t best pleased.’

Naylor tapped the page in front of him with a pencil.

‘Interesting.’

‘I’m not proud of it.’

‘Interesting, in that your wife said there was a bit more to it than that.’

A swooping, lurching sensation in my stomach.