She might even have called it a breakdown. It happened on the M5 just outside Exeter, but it must have been brewing for days, since she was given the responsibility for the Franks murder investigation. Then, driving at speed on the outside lane of the motorway, she had been conscious, with a sudden, dizzying self-awareness, that nothing in her life was working properly. She had a vision of the disparate elements of her life as mechanical components exploding away from her, as in the slow-motion film of a bombed car. Before, she felt, she had managed to keep things together with an effort of will. Now she had lost control of it all. Later she was to put the experience down to exhaustion or shock. Her husband realised, too, that it was close to the anniversary of her mother’s death. At the time she was terrified, and though she continued to drive up the motorway, passing lorries and caravans like an automaton, she thought she was insane and knew she would never take responsibility for anything again.

“I think we should stop for coffee at the next services, don’t you?” Molly Palmer-Jones said. Claire never knew if the suggestion was coincidental, or if Molly had sensed her sudden tension. “And breakfast—it must be breakfast time by now.”

So, obediently Claire had turned the car off the motorway into the service station. She looked at the car clock and saw that the time was eight o’clock. Even from the car they could smell the bacon frying in the transport café where the lorry drivers were eating in smoky isolation. But once she had switched off the ignition, Claire could not move. She was rigid, her knuckles white as they gripped the steering wheel, her neck and shoulders braced against the back of the car seat.

“My dear,” Molly said, “What is the matter?”

If anyone else had asked the same question, Claire would have shook her head and remained stiff and tight-lipped. But the elderly woman’s interest and understanding allowed her to speak. It all came out, the impossibility of living with Richard, the impossibility of working with Wargan, her guilt and frustration. Her life, she said at last, was one massive cock-up.

The most miraculous thing about the whole encounter, she later told Richard, was that by the end of it they were both laughing. They laughed at the pomposity of men and the weakness of women who were taken in by it, and at Claire herself for taking them too seriously. Claire was never sure how the tension had been released and confidence restored. Molly had listened but said very little. There was no physical contact, no comforting embrace. But at the end the crisis was over, and she felt able to start again.

“Coffee,” Molly said. “Now we definitely need coffee. And mounds of toast.”