‘He moved away. We don’t see him very often. He finds it hard being around us after what happened to his brother,’ Nina said.

‘He blamed us,’ Mr Hucknell spat. ‘As if we were to blame. We did everything we could. Yes, he lost his brother but we lost our son. We still don’t have any answers. “Depression” the doctors said and that’s it. Nothing else. Why was he depressed? He had a loving family, a nice home. It never made any sense.’

‘He was hurting, Anthony, he didn’t mean it.’

‘It felt like we lost both our boys.’ His eyes misted up.

‘I know this is painful, but can you confirm what Jack used to kill himself with?’

‘Rope. He must have got it out of the shed.’ Nina’s voice continued to quiver. ‘I’ve got a picture of him if you’d like to see it?’ It was clear she needed to replace the image in her head with something else.

‘That would be lovely,’ Elly said softly.

‘I’ll just go and fetch it.’ Nina got up, her navy floral dress swishing as she went.

‘My wife still finds it difficult,’ Anthony said reaching for a mince pie. ‘We’ve never had proper closure because we still don’t know why he did it. I know that people who suffer from depression commit suicide but the change in him was so sudden, it just doesn’t make any sense. We still don’t have answers.’ He wiped some loose pastry crumbs from his moustache. ‘I suppose we never will.’

Palmer looked at Elly for a moment before deciding to speak.

‘It is possible that these murders are somehow connected to what happened to Jack.’ He was cautious not to say too much. ‘Where does Matthew live?’

‘Northampton.’

‘Could I have his address please?’ Palmer got out his trusty notebook. ‘We’d like to speak to him.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t advise that.’ Anthony glared at Palmer. ‘He’s very unstable.’

‘I understand. We’ll be very sensitive, but I think it is important that we do speak to him.’

‘It might spark an episode,’ Anthony said warily.

‘If you’d like, you are very welcome to be present when we speak to him?’

‘I’d be no use.’ Anthony shook his head. ‘But his mother might be. He’s better with her than he is with me.’

‘Here we are,’ Nina said brightly coming back into the room just as Elly and Palmer both gave in and helped themselves to a mince pie each.

‘This was taken in ninety-six. Look,’ she said pointing at a figure, ‘there’s Dennis. This was one of their camping trips, I think. And here, in the middle, is Jack.’ Nina handed the photo over to Palmer who studied it for a moment.