On the line to the emergency services, she’d tried to be factual. ‘There’s a dead body in my home,’ she’d said, when asked which service she wanted to be connected to, because she wasn’t sure, suddenly, whether it was police or ambulance you asked for. ‘I know I don’t want the fire brigade, anyway.’ She might have chuckled there. It’s what you do when something’s awkward, isn’t it? You make a joke.

The woman on the other end of the line had a sharp Northern Irish accent. ‘OK, ma’am. Ma’am? Is the body someone you know?’

After that was done, she’d looked at the phone still in her hand, and called Alison.

‘Hi. What’s up? I’m at work—’

‘Hello. Clio is in the room upstairs, and she’s dead.’

She realized immediately that it had been a mistake, calling her.

‘She – what? Oh. Wow. Wow. What? What happened? Oh. Oh. Ruth, are – is everything all right? Well, no, of course everything’s not all right. Right. Oh. Wow. Um. Um. Do you – do you want me – I could come. I mean, there’s the marketing meeting at four, but I could – yeah, it’s not. Right, I’ll be there. I’m on my way. It’s OK.’

‘No, don’t worry. Stay where you are.’ The thought of Alison huffing about in the quiet of her living room. ‘I just needed to tell someone.’

‘Have you called an ambulance? Is she definitely dead? She’s not just – I mean, what’s she done? Er, yeah. Yeah. Suicide, I take it?’

Suicide, I take it. Clio would hate that Alison was the first person to hear about her death. Would have hated. Alison hadn’t slept over at all during Clio’s stay at the cottage this time, said that she didn’t like to think of Clio listening to them having sex. Really it was that Clio couldn’t hide her disdain for Ruth’s girlfriend. She thought Alison was possessive and stupid, and she’d told Ruth so. Often.

Alison was still sputtering down the phone.

‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I think that’s the police, now. Someone at the door. I’ll need to go. Don’t worry about me.’

The policewoman was young; thin with order and neatness, a delicate single diamond on a plain band on her left hand. Already. Like a bird, a well-behaved little bird. Ruth felt huge beside her, rangy and childless. The policewoman pecked at the tea and biscuit. Ruth had felt compelled to provide for them, although they’d told her to sit down. The man, the senior, stood at the back of the room, hands behind his back, letting the women get on with the business.