‘Voice banking?’ he says. ‘Is that a phrase you’ve ever come across?’

‘Never.’

‘Again, it’s useful, obvious, really helpful. A bloke comes along and records a whole load of phrases while you’ve still got the power to speak. Your own voice. Your own way of putting things. Then, later, when you can’t talk at all, you use this special machine, pretending you’re someone that you’re not, someone who’s long gone. Chrissie couldn’t get her head around it. The thought of someone having to cut her food up and feed her was bad enough, but this was way off the scale. She never cried, never. That morning, outside the surgery, she was all over the place. No way, she told me. No fucking way. You understand now?’ He nods at the water, and then gestures back towards the car park and the incident van. ‘So you see why everyone’s wasting their time?’

ELEVEN

At my insistence, the three of us go out to dinner. On Evelyn’s recommendation, I book a table at the local Indian restaurant and we spend a quiet-ish evening trying to cheer McFaul up. It doesn’t help that a couple at a nearby table are discussing the day’s developments on the beach and when they agree that the whole thing – the husband uses the word ‘pantomime’ – is a huge waste of public money, I’m half-expecting McFaul to thump him. Far from it.

‘He’s right,’ he grunts.

Back home, McFaul mumbles a thank you and disappears into his bungalow. Evelyn and I share a nightcap or two and agree that only time will resolve what might have happened to Christianne. When I tell Evelyn about the form from the GP, and how distressed she’d been at the thought of what lay in wait, she nods.

‘We went shopping a couple of weeks ago,’ she says. ‘I drove her over to Exmouth and we dropped in at the big Tesco. There was a woman there with a zimmer frame on wheels. She wasn’t old, not at all. Christianne couldn’t take her eyes off her, barely said a word on the way back.’ She runs her finger around the glass of port. ‘Should I have been nosier? More intrusive? And what on earth are we to do with Andy?’

This, of course, is the million-dollar question. Try as I might, I can’t get that final paragraph of Christianne’s letter out of my mind. Whatever else I owe her memory, I need to keep an eye on the men in her life.

Next morning, I find a number for Sir William Penny and make the call. To my surprise, he recognizes my voice.

‘My dear,’ he says. ‘How’s life up there in the real world?’

When I tell him I’m back in Budleigh, he appears to be delighted. Then he wants to know why.