‘Not yet. I’m still watching. You’ve got it on? The TV?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re on the clifftop?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve seen what’s on the beach?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Christianne, it has to be.’

‘What?’

‘Christianne. In that coffin. She didn’t go swimming at all. Someone buried her there.’

It’s early afternoon by the time I make it down to Budleigh Salterton. There are old posters for the Military Wives Choir on the approach to the town and Christmas lights hang across the High Street. In the big car park at the foot of the hill beside the beach, I count half a dozen media vans, including three with satellite dishes. A far corner of the car park has been coned off, and I watch a figure in a high-vis tabard guiding in a small helicopter. The chopper raises a dust cloud as it rears up and then touches down. With the rotors still turning, a cameraman jumps on to the tarmac and heads for one of the satellite vans. Christianne, I can’t help thinking. Yet more pictures.

I park. Before I head up to Evelyn’s, I want to find out as much as I can. The promenade, predictably, is thick with people. Many will be local. Many won’t. The weather is foul, grey, windy, rain in the air, but nothing, it seems, can keep people away from an incident like this.

I head west, towards the curl of beach where the cliff fall happened. The police have sealed off the seafront where the coastal path begins the long climb up towards the golf club, but I jump down on to the smoothness of the big pebbles and keep going. Beyond a line of fishing boats, there’s more tape, more spectators, more pointing fingers. A uniformed cop is turning away the braver souls who try to duck beneath the tape and I scan the nearby faces, looking for someone I might know. Then comes the lightest pressure on my shoulder.

‘Enora. What a bloody awful thing.’

It’s Bill Penny. He’s wearing an overcoat that’s seen better days and he’s looking pale and drawn. His head is bare and what little hair he possesses has gone rogue in the wind.

I look at him for a long moment. A nod is all the confirmation I need. He puts his arms round me while I press my face into his coat. Despite my tears, and Hundchen’s long absence, I can still smell dog.

‘Shit.’ I surface for air. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ He offers me a handkerchief.

I cry a little more, telling myself this is useless, that it will make fuck-all difference, but that reduces me to tears yet again. Get a grip, I tell myself. You’re better than this, stronger than this. Think of Christianne, of McFaul. Dignity. Grace. Man bloody up.

‘So, what happened?’ I manage at last.