‘And you believe him?’ Annie asked with her customary cool while Julia nearly knocked over the table in excitement.

‘Why shouldn’t she? Why would he make something like that up? Who is he?’

Billie smiled. How could she explain Clive?

‘He’s a chap called Clive who’s been hanging around the promenade for years. He’s a little eccentric, but I’ve no reason to suspect he’s lying. I think maybe he has Asperger’s or something similar. Imelda and Treasure have both vouched for him, and as Julia says, why would he make it up?’

‘For attention? Maybe he’s lonely and wants to feel part of something; wants to feel important?’

Billie considered Annie’s words for a moment. Clive might be lonely, and it was strange that he hadn’t said anything about it for all these years until Billie shared with him that she was the baby abandoned. But equally Clive wasn’t a man who courted attention; if anything, he did his best to avoid it.

‘That doesn’t sound like Clive. He’s a bit of a loner, and I get the impression that he likes it that way.’

‘What do you mean by “hanging around the promenade”? Is he a vagrant?’

‘Annie!’ Julia had almost finished her cocktail and was beginning to relax. ‘Don’t be such a snob! Even if he is a homeless person it doesn’t mean he’s not honest!’

‘I’m well aware of that. I’m just trying to build a proper picture of the man before I can decide whether or not he’s a credible witness.’

Julia hooted with laughter. ‘Who do you think you are? MI5?’

Annie shook her head. ‘I’d rather be Vera. Only with a much better wardrobe, obviously.’

Billie had missed her friends’ good-natured banter, but she felt uncomfortable hearing them discuss Clive like this. Of course she wanted to believe him, but it was more than that. Clive was the proverbial book so often judged by a shabby cover with a superficial synopsis. She couldn’t help but feel that the man himself was a great deal more than that.

‘He’s not homeless. And I’m sure he’s telling the truth,’ she said quietly.

‘Now, did he tell you what she looked like, pet?’ Julia’s approximation of TV detective Vera’s Geordie accent was as wide of the mark geographically as Merthyr Tydfil.

Billie laughed. ‘No. But he’d seen her a couple of times before in the café and on the prom. Unfortunately, he didn’t know her name or whether she worked at Larkins.’

Annie got up to order another round of drinks. ‘Well, it’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t really help much, does it?’

‘I wanted it to be Madame Burova,’ Julia added with a sigh.

‘To be honest, so did I. But it’s looking extremely unlikely now,’ Billie conceded.