And it has. We’ve left the electoral battlegrounds and a news summary takes us to the coast of East Devon where, it seems, something rather bizarre has happened. The studio presenter throws to a reporter airborne in a helicopter. He bellows something I can’t quite understand and then the camera pans to reveal a vast scar in the cliff face. This stretch of coast, the reporter tells us, is notorious for cliff falls and this one has happened overnight, thousands of tons of rock and soil deposited on the beach. I’m staring at the screen, at the shape of the cliffs. The colour is the giveaway, a rich ochre, pinking the waves that curl on to the beach. Budleigh Salterton, I think. Just where the coastal path runs beside the golf course.

But the cameraman hasn’t finished. He’s tightening the shot, until all I can see is a close-up of the rubble at the foot of the cliff. At first, I can’t make sense of the object in the very middle of the picture. It’s oblong, probably man-made. It looks like a long box, and as the cameraman tweaks the focus, I’m guessing it once had a lid. Then, as the shot tightens even further, I feel the blood in my veins begin to ice. It’s not a box at all, it’s a coffin. And the shrouded object inside, a grubby white, is a body.

‘You’ve seen it?’ I’m talking to Evelyn again.

‘Yes. I’m watching now. Horrible. Ghastly.’

‘Is it what I think it is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we have a name?’

‘Not yet. Bill says there’s a recovery team en route.’ She pauses. Another gulp. ‘Can you come down, my lovely? Can you do that for me?’

I don’t leave at once because I can’t tear myself away from the TV. After another interminable trek around the nation’s polling stations, we’re back with the news roundup. By now, events in East Devon are leading the running order. News crews have established a presence on the foreshore and from a respectful distance, we’re watching a pair of paramedics bent over what is definitely a coffin. Barely metres offshore, a lifeboat is wallowing in the swell, but there’s no attempt to transfer the shrouded body. The camera pans slowly upwards, tracing the line of the cliff fall, and then we cut to another shot, this time on top of the cliff.

I stare at it, transfixed. The rawness of the scar in the turf is new, but I recognize the shape of the surrounding bushes, the half-hidden remains of a path, and – most important of all – the view across the bay. This is where Christianne took me the morning we walked up beside the golf course. This is her very favourite place in all the world.

‘Well, my lovely?’ It’s Evelyn on the phone again. ‘You’re on your way?’