The conversation dies. We’re watching the lifeboat from the clifftop now, barely a speck in the ocean with its little white tail of wake. In our separate trades, albeit second-hand, Evelyn and I are all too familiar with the grim consequences of sudden death, that miasma of suspicion and conjecture that thickens and confounds and keeps bums on seats, and pages turning, but this abrupt development is suddenly all too real. The TV coverage has returned to election day by the time someone knocks on Evelyn’s door.

It’s Beth. I hear Evelyn inviting her in. I’m still in the lounge, one eye on the screen, when Beth appears at the door. She seems surprised to see me.

‘She looked so peaceful,’ she says at once. ‘You wouldn’t believe how peaceful she looked.’

There are shots of Plymouth on the TV. Thinner voter turnout so far in the south-west than expected. I mute the sound and turn back to Beth.

‘How did you get through the police barrier?’ I ask.

‘I told them I had an idea who it was. The guy stopping me made a call on the radio. I even got an escort.’

‘But what made you think it was Christianne?’

She stares at me, confused, and I realize she doesn’t have an answer.

‘I just did,’ she says at last. ‘It had to be.’

‘But why?’

‘Why? Why bloody not? A woman goes missing? No one can find her? Then a body turns up on a beach? Am I inventing any of this?’

I realize we’re back in the side room at the public hall, a couple of months ago, the last time I was trying to pin her down. The same quick flare of anger. The same outrage that someone might doubt her word.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just asking, that’s all. Let’s call it a hunch on your part. Let’s leave it at that.’

This should do the trick, but it doesn’t.

‘Why are you always so difficult?’ she says. ‘Why are you here at all?’

I do my best to defend myself. I’ve known Evelyn for years. She’s precious to me. And when she wants a little TLC, a little support, I’m very happy to drop everything and drive down.

‘You don’t think she’s made friends of her own? Local people? Me and Presley, for example? Bill?’

‘I’m sure she has lots of friends. That’s the way she’s made. She’s a lovely person, always has been.’

‘Then why not leave it to us?’

This, to be frank, leaves me speechless. Don’t I have a right to get in my car and come to the aid of one of my closest friends? Has someone thrown a fictive border around this town? Does my name belong on a list of undesirables?