I looked at the wall, at the faces of the other residents, mulling over the idea of an affair conducted within the confines of Black Gale. It would have been risky, hard to hide and potentially easy to expose in an environment where all the villagers lived so closely, physically and socially. How could you ever do anything in secret when even something as simple as a walk got spotted? But that didn’t make the idea impossible. And if Laura was the one who’d actually spotted Patrick, and Patrick really was cheating on his wife, that meant he could have been seeing either Freda Davey or Emiline Wilson.

‘Did Laura ever say anything to Patrick?’ I asked.

Tori nodded. ‘He told her he was trying to get into photography, and that he thought sunrise and sunset would be the best times to get the most dramatic photos.’

‘Which is perfectly plausible.’

‘It is, yes.’

She seemed a little defeated now, as if – for the first time – she understood the arguable nature of this line of enquiry. The decision not to mention anything to Rina or Ross looked like a good one.

Tori moved, her chair squeaking gently. ‘For what it’s worth, he told her he was practising taking photographs on his phone with a view to getting a proper camera later on down the line – which is what he did do. Laura said he showed her the pictures he’d taken, and they were beautiful, and then he showed her a camera he’d bought a few weeks later that he started carrying on him. So, whatever else was going on, he wasn’t lying about that. He did go out there and he was taking pictures.’

‘And did you tell the police what you just told me?’

‘Yes. All of it.’

Except it wasn’t in the file, which meant they clearly didn’t see anything worth pursuing. It was easy to see why. As I thought about that, out of the corner of my eye I saw Healy holding something up. It was a six- by four-inch picture he’d lifted out of the shoebox full of photographs that I’d found in the Perrys’ living room: taken from the moors, it was a shot of the village, the four properties just silhouettes against the red stain of a sunrise.

‘What about Francesca?’ I asked. ‘Did Laura ever speak to her about it?’

‘Yes. She said, after the seventh or eighth time it happened, she casually dropped it into conversation with Francesca, but Francesca seemed to be pretty accepting of the explanation Patrick had given her.’

‘That he was out there taking pictures?’

‘Right.’

‘Okay, Tori,’ I said. ‘I appreciate you mentioning it.’

We said goodbye and rung off.

I turned and looked at Healy. He was going through the shoebox, picking out and setting aside other photos that Patrick had taken: there were at least six of them.

‘What do you think?’ I said.