Tony nods and shoots me a look. Then he reaches for a pen and scribbles me a note on his pad. I have to be at Winchester Crown Court first thing tomorrow, he’s written. So let’s hope they wind this thing up.

Bullivant returns moments later. He has my phone and he lays it carefully on the desk in front of him. He eyeballs me for a second or two, and then accesses my photo gallery.

‘Do you recognize this photograph?’ He shows me the phone.

I’m looking at a selfie I took of Christianne and me that Saturday she showed me the coastal path.

‘Well, Ms Andressen?’

I glance at Tony. ‘No comment’ sounds a bit silly when I’m looking at myself. Tony shrugs. Go ahead.

‘That’s Christianne,’ I tell Bullivant. ‘At that favourite place of hers.’

‘And the plastic mac you’re wearing?’

‘Christianne lent it to me when we were on our walk. It was starting to rain.’

‘We seized that mac when we searched your friend’s bungalow,’ Bullivant says.

I nod. I remember. I say nothing. There’s a longish silence, then Brett takes up the running.

‘Sir William Penny,’ he says. ‘Can we assume you know him?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re friends?’

‘I’d like to think so.’

‘He has a dog, doesn’t he?’

‘Had,’ I say. ‘He had a dog. Little thing. Hundchen. Old. Sweet. Going blind. It wandered off somewhere.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Bill – Sir William – told me.’

‘When? When did this happen?’

‘I can’t remember. It must have been back in September, when I first came down.’

‘When your friend Christianne disappeared?’

‘Yes.’

Tony Morse is beginning to stir. I can sense he’s getting uncomfortable with this line of questioning. I, too, haven’t a clue where it might lead, but Brett is only too happy to help us out.

‘We recovered the dog,’ he says.

‘Really? Where was she?’

‘In the coffin. Beside your friend. Dead, I’m afraid.’

Process, in its modern usage, is a verb I’ve learned to despise. Way too American. Far too managerial. But just here and just now it’s the perfect description of me trying to get on top of this latest little aftershock. Christianne plunging into the afterlife surrounded by Egyptian hieroglyphics? Sharing her coffin with a dog?

‘You’re telling me you found him on the beach?’ I check with Brett that I’ve got this right.

‘Yes. In the coffin, like I said. The dog and your friend were buried together.’

I nod. I can’t think of anything to say.

‘No comment?’ Brett is playing games now.

‘None.’

‘You knew the dog, Ms Andressen?’ Bullivant has permitted himself the ghost of a smile.

‘I saw her once. Just once. That same Saturday afternoon.’

‘Did you have physical contact with the dog?’

‘I can’t remember. She was a pathetic little thing. Did I cuddle her? I might have done.’