She was silent, and I hoped she was weighing up what I’d said. I was going to have to mention children to a woman who’d just lost her child and her husband, and found out that he’d been cheating. It seemed so cruel. ‘If the woman in the fire has young children at home, they might not be able to get water or know how to get help.’ I paused again to let her absorb the information. ‘At best, they may be scared stiff. But if they’ve been without water since first thing yesterday, that’s two days already. A young child, or one’s who’s sick, might not last much longer. If you know something, please —’

‘OK, OK.’ She raised her hand to silence me. ‘Enough of the emotional blackmail.’ Despair threaded through her delicate features. ‘What Natassja said is true. I do know who she is but I don’t know her name or much about her. She lives over in Essex and has a child.’

Finally.

The news was bitter-sweet but at least we had a bit more to go on, and the team could check for Missing Persons in Essex.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I overheard Simas on the phone one day. He didn’t know I was there. He said something like, “Get the kid sorted and I’ll come over to Essex later.”’

‘You didn’t catch a name? Any more details?’

She shook her head. ‘He rang off after that and I froze. I didn’t want him to know that I’d overheard. I also found some restaurant receipts from Essex.’

I paused to recalibrate; to decide what else I needed to ask her. ‘Can we go back to yesterday for a moment? When you left the shop to go to your sister’s, did you believe your husband when he said he wasn’t feeling well?’

‘Taip. Inspector, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a partner who’s cheated on you but it’s difficult to move on. The . . . abejonių . . . what’s the word? Doubt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Doubt eats away at you like a cancer. Once a lover has been unfaithful, you become suspicious of everything they do. I told Simas I wanted a divorce. He begged me not to leave him. We made an agreement. The rest is as I’ve told you.’

I got the picture. I admired her. What she had done was brave. ‘Without wishing to pry too much, why did you decide to stay with your husband?’

‘We are immigrants. We are from a country no-one has heard of and we speak a language no-one understands except us. Other than my sesuo, I have no family here. Simas was my family for six years. I forgave him because I hoped he’d be different. That way, I would have no regrets.’