Again the spine tingled. ‘Oh – I expect Ben will have told him the whole thing by now. He found a whole lot about Karen on the Internet. It was amazing.’

‘Karen? But I heard that her name was Grace.’

‘I know. Ben’s found the whole thing on the Internet.’

‘I see. We might have known he would. He’s such a clever boy, isn’t he. And he does love anything to do with murder. You should hear his poor mother on the subject. So my guess is he’s been digging away on that smartphone thing of his, and come up with some idea that looks convincing – but it can’t possibly be right. You know, you can’t believe everything you read. There’s an awful lot of disinformation.’

‘I don’t think that can be the case here,’ Thea began to argue. ‘I mean – why would anybody go to so much trouble? I think we can at least be certain of her identity now. And that’s all the police will need to get to the bottom of the story. They can question Grace Berensen – that’s her partner – who’s sure to shed a whole lot of light on the matter.’

Norma flashed another quick smile, and then sighed. ‘Best leave it all to them, then. Listen – I’ve got a cottage pie all ready to be warmed up. What do you say? Shall we have some supper first, and then see about all this other stuff? I can show you my husband’s collection of beer mats.’ She laughed. ‘He’s terribly proud of them. 324They come from all over the world. And we could sit out on the patio to eat. Don’t you feel you have to make the best of any dry evening, at this time of year?’

Could she possibly be as blithely innocent as she seemed? Nothing appeared to worry her, even startling revelations about her family. Did it not occur to her that if the fact of Grace’s identity had been kept a secret, there had to be a reason for that? Something nasty, guilty and ultimately violent. Apparently, she could just carry on as normal, regardless of any implications. Perhaps this was the way most people behaved in the real world, and it was only Thea who saw killers behind every rural hedge. With an inner sigh of resignation, she accepted the offer of cottage pie and a large glass of red wine to drink while it heated up. Norma led her outside to a wrought-iron table and chairs on her patio at the back of the house. There were about eighteen plant containers ranged all around the area, full of red geraniums and hectic impatiens. Begonias and violas, too. Unimaginative but undeniably colourful.

It would soon be time to phone Drew. His image had hovered at the back of her mind all day, curiously tinged with trepidation. She found she was in no rush to speak to him, especially given his repeated discouragement of her making nightly phone calls. There were going to be more hard decisions about how much to tell him, how closely to question him, and how much of her unhappy sense of distance she ought to try to convey. He would imply that it was all her own doing, that he was being the model husband in tolerating her 325absence without complaint. He would say he was happy to go along with whatever programme she had for the weekend, and express satisfaction that she was alive and well. She had no right to demand any more than that, which only made her more unhappy.