I shrug. I say I’ve no idea. Then comes a knock at the door and a face appears. The coastguard coordinating the rescue search at sea has just called in.

‘And?’

‘Nothing, boss. Nothing from the lifeboat people, nothing from the clifftops.’

She nods. A glance at her watch, and then another scribbled note. The face at the door eyes me for a moment, before disappearing.

‘Did you know your friend had medical issues?’ Hollick is still writing.

‘No.’ I shake my head.

‘That surprises me.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Because she had MND.’ She looks up at last. ‘Do you know what that means, Ms Andressen? Motor neurone disease?’

I shake my head. I know a great deal about the world of malign tumours, and where that kind of diagnosis can take you, but mercifully I’ve been spared any brushes with MND.

‘It’s horrible,’ Hollick says. ‘A friend of a friend of a friend had it. You’re perfectly OK one moment. Then you start getting these strange symptoms, your body out of control. A year or so later, you’re in a wheelchair, unable to talk, unable to breathe, just suffocating to death.’ She pauses, letting this news sink in. ‘She didn’t mention it? Not once?’

‘Never. But …’

‘But what?’

I’m thinking of Christianne and McFaul in the garden with the golf club, McFaul trying to guide her every movement. I’m remembering moments in their kitchen, or when Christianne and I went for a walk, and she’d miss her footing, or stumble, or – in the kitchen or the pub – reach for her glass and miss.

‘There were clues,’ I say. ‘Maybe I should have looked harder.’

Hollick nods, says nothing. When I ask how she knows about the diagnosis, she says it came from McFaul.

‘It was one of the first things he told us when he phoned in. His call went through to the control room. A misper with serious health issues? That’s high-risk, straight off.’ She gestures round the van. ‘Summon the cavalry. Pull out the stops. Full service. A condition like that, it’s the least we can do.’ She reaches for her pen again. ‘We understand she’d been a nurse. Médecins Sans Frontières?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then she’d have understood the early symptoms, known what to expect down the road.’

‘Hadn’t she gone to the doctor?’

‘Only very recently.’

‘And?’

‘You should talk to Mr McFaul. This is a tricky area; I’ve probably said far too much already. All I need to know for now is whether or not you talked about …’ She holds her hands wide. ‘Any of this stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

‘MND.’ Her gaze is steady. ‘Having to cope with something like that.’

‘Then the answer’s no. We talked about lots of things, but never any kind of illness.’

‘But don’t you find that strange? Given how close you seemed to have become?’