“Aunt Alice was murdered, wasn’t she? Someone killed her?”

“Yes,” Judy said. “ The police think she was murdered.”

“I saw her go out,” he said. “ She banged the door and went off down the drive.”

“You can’t have seen her,” Judy said. “ You were asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” he said. “ I was pretending.”

“So you saw Aunt Alice walk down the drive to the road?”

He nodded.

“Did you see anything else later? Did you see your aunt coming back?”

Perhaps the urgency of her voice distressed him. He seemed suddenly frightened and pushed his head into the pillow. She held him and turned him gently to face her.

“You’re quite safe here,” she said. “You can tell me. Did you see anyone else that night?”

But his loyalty to Carolyn prevented him from sharing his fear.

“No!” he said, almost hysterical. “ No!”

She held him tightly until he sobbed himself to sleep.

The kitchen was in the basement. It was the length of the house. At the front it was below the level of the street, but at the back there was a door into the garden. On one wall hung a red, cream, and black rug that they had brought home from a holiday in Portugal. There was a small sofa covered in an Indian bedspread bought in an Oxfam shop when Max was a student and a long oak table that had been made by a friend. There was a notice board made of cork tiles where the children’s paintings and drawings were pinned, together with postcards, magazine articles, concert tickets. Max walked into the silent house and down the bare wooden stairs to the kitchen. He was later than usual and tried to think of some excuse if Judy should ask him where he had been.

The room was lit only by a spotlight over the table and another near to the cooker where Judy was standing. The mess of unironed clothes and half-completed models had become invisible in shadowy corners. The table was laid for dinner, with cutlery and a wooden bowl of salad. There were wineglasses. It was all quite different from what he expected. They seemed to live now on a children’s diet of sausages and baked beans. He shut the door behind him and pulled across the heavy curtain that shut out the draughts from upstairs. He wanted to acknowledge the effort Judy had made.

“This looks nice,” he said, realising at once how inadequate it sounded. Judy lifted a tray of baked potatoes from the oven and prodded one to make sure it was cooked.

“I put them to bed early,” she said. “They were so tired.”

He took off his coat and put it over a chair.

“There’s some wine in the fridge,” she said. “Would you like to open it?”

Why do we have to be so polite to each other? he thought. Do we have to start from the beginning again?