‘McFaul told you that?’

‘Yes. He was there, too.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘Every word. Every syllable. Do yourself a favour, Brett. Let your guard down. Trust people a little. Give us all a break.’ I shake my head, study my hands. This is terrible dialogue, a scene I never want to play again as long as I live, but I owe it to McFaul to open these people’s eyes. ‘Goodness still exists in the world. And you’ve just banged a decent man up.’

‘All that stuff he got rid of,’ Brett says. ‘Why would he do something like that?’

I do my best to explain. MND had turned Christianne into a slut, I tell him, and he couldn’t bear to live with the evidence a moment longer.

‘Shaz, wasn’t it?’ I’ve remembered the name of Brett’s partner.

‘Still is.’

‘Then try and imagine that this horrible thing has happened to her. She’s changing in front of your eyes, in front of her own eyes. The life you’ve always taken for granted has become a nightmare. You find yourself living in conditions the pair of you would never have put up with for a moment. Never. But there turns out to be nothing you can do about it. She’s sensitive. She’s proud. So every time you try and clean the place up, she loses it, yells at you, tells you to fuck off back to the garden. That’s what happened, Brett, and that’s why he’s just had a bit of a spring clean. Do you blame the man? Wouldn’t you get the bleach out? Under circumstances like that?’

‘But she might come back,’ he says softly.

‘She might. You’re right. But she won’t.’

‘How does he know?’

‘Because they’ve lived together for more than twenty years. Because they’ve worked in places that would scare the likes of you and me shitless. And because he knows exactly what she’d decided to do.’

‘Disappear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do away with herself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Of course not. That’s your job. All I’m doing here is putting in the bits none of you appear to have noticed. In my business, we’d call it back story, stage directions, whatever. You need the whole picture, Brett, and I’m happy to help.’

Brett has produced a pad. He scribbles himself a note, then stares at it for a moment or two, and looking at him I begin to doubt that they’ve found a body.

‘They were poor, this couple …’ He taps the pad with the end of his pen. ‘Would that be right?’

‘In the smallness of their wants? No. That made them rich. In cash terms? You’re right, they were flat broke, totally skint, barely a penny to their names.’

‘You know that?’