Brett wants to know more about their relationship, McFaul and Christianne, and for the next hour or so I encourage him to picture the life they must have led together before the onset of MND. The years in Angola, and later Bosnia. Moving to the remoteness of rural Portugal. Getting by on very little except each other. I can tell he doesn’t entirely buy this idyll because policemen aren’t made that way.

‘So, what happens next?’ I ask. Brett is checking his watch.

‘We put forensics into the bungalow,’ he says. ‘Box it off, room by room. That can take days, literally.’

‘And you’re looking for?’

‘Anything that can build the story. The physical search is already winding down. The inspector in charge released the Force Support Group this morning. Now we’re left with McFaul himself, and anyone else we can lay hands on.’ That smile again. ‘Any names you might like to share?’

‘None,’ I tell him. ‘I’m a stranger down here, remember.’

Brett holds my gaze for a moment, then gets to his feet. I do the same. He reaches down to tidy the pages of his notepad, and as he does so, I notice a date circled in red ink. Saturday, 14 September. The day Christianne and I went walking on the coastal path. The day she showed me the view from the clifftop. The day we had lunch with Bill Penny. Is this where Operation Bulldog has settled? Is this where Bullivant and Brett believe the truth might lie? In the hours after Christianne returned from the pub? Or maybe later that weekend?

I turn away from the desk. On the back of the door hangs a leather suit, and a helmet, the kind that bikers wear, and tucked neatly beside the skirting board are a pair of leather boots.

‘You’ve got a motorbike?’

‘Christ, no. Never. That kit belongs to Bullivant. He rides a big Kawasaki, has done for years. He’s a lay preacher, too. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, so maybe that’s where the bike comes in. How does all that fit together?’ One last grin. ‘You tell me.’

FIFTEEN

The news that I’ve just spent a couple of hours with the police appears to startle Evelyn.

‘They’ve found dear Christianne?’

‘Alas, no.’

‘Then what on earth’s going on?’

I’ve been tempted to gloss over the small print of my interview with Brett Atkinson, but the sight of two vans outside McFaul’s bungalow, one of them marked Police Forensic Unit, has rather blown my cover.

‘They seem to think there’s more to all this than meets the eye,’ I mutter.

‘More to all what?’

‘Christianne going missing. You never told me about the little fracas you reported.’

Evelyn stares at me. She looks deeply ashamed.