Next morning, exhausted, I’m debating what to do with this story of Beth’s. Before we left Bill’s house last night, he’d slipped a CD into his audio system and asked us to spend a minute or two just remembering what a remarkable woman we’d lost. The music was Brahms. Schicksalslied, the Song of Destiny. Christianne, Bill said, had fallen in love with it.

Afterwards, the music over, we collected our coats and all met in the hall for something I can only describe as a group hug. It happened spontaneously, an unvoiced pledge that we’d respect Christianne’s departure and keep the knowledge of what had really happened to ourselves. In the darkness outside, I briefly fell into step beside Nathan.

‘Nightmare.’ He shot me a glance. ‘Can you imagine doing something like that?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can. But I’d have to be very drunk.’

‘Just like her, then.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor soul.’

Now, soaping myself in the shower, I’m thinking about McFaul. DI Bullivant, I know, will do his best to take him to court. With whatever evidence he can muster, he’ll try and prove that Christianne was killed by her partner, either out of desperation, or for gain. Isn’t it therefore down to me to prove that she went of her own volition? At a moment of her choosing? By jumping to certain death off that bloody dock? Wouldn’t that get McFaul out of the clutches of Operation Bulldog?

I phone Brett Atkinson after Evelyn has fed me toast and a pot of tea. When I press him for a meet, somewhere private, he suggests the car park beside Exmouth’s leisure centre. He’ll be in a white Ford Focus. He’ll be watching out for me.

I leave the bungalow with plenty of time in hand. The presence of the forensic team has been reduced to a single van. The curtains on the bungalow’s front windows have remained closed since the team’s arrival, but I’ve watched enough prime-time TV to imagine these men trying to conjure a story from microscopic particles of God knows what. Poor bloody McFaul, I think. Fate, indeed.

Brett turns up late, blaming a meeting that overran. When I ask him how things are going with Operation Bulldog, he pulls a face. McFaul, he says, has struck lucky with the duty solicitor. She’s an old hand, aware of the lack of truly hard evidence, and has advised her client to say nothing. So far, he says, the interview team has failed to get beyond ‘No comment’, and the case against McFaul has barely progressed at all. The on-call superintendent has approved another twelve hours of custody, but after that Bulldog’s prime suspect will probably walk free.

‘What about the forensics?’ I enquire. ‘The search team at the bungalow?’

‘They’re still on the case.’

‘And?’