He reached out and took her hand in his. ‘We’ll do Rome in the summer,’ he said easily. ‘Or Zanzibar, if you prefer. But now, Inspector, yes, we’d better go home. To my place please. It was such a lovely day that we got up very early and we’ve been walking all morning, but now I think Hannah is very tired. Just as well you appeared to save us. Mother has offered to make us lunch.’

‘You must be feeling better if you’re up to facing the mother-in-law,’ Vera said with a smile.

‘The doctor gave me some pills and now I don’t feel very much at all.’ Hannah had drooped after the flicker of her exchange with Simon. She lay back in the seat with her eyes half closed.

‘But you do have to eat, and neither of us can face the supermarket.’ He was still leaning forward, the seat belt stretched to its limit, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

‘I never did ask you,’ Vera said, talking to Simon’s reflection in the mirror, ‘where were you the morning Jenny died?’ She had a sudden horrible thought that he might be implicated in some way. She hadn’t checked, after all, that he had an alibi. But she hated the idea of it, of Hannah’s saviour as killer.

‘At home,’ he said. ‘Hannah wanted to revise, so we hadn’t planned to meet up until the evening.’ He must have realized why she was asking, but he didn’t seem at all offended.

‘Was your mother in?’

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I’d been out on the piss the night before, catching up with some of the lads I was at school with. I didn’t surface until midday. Mum was out then, but she came back soon after.’

By now they were approaching the crossroads, the turn-off to the village. Connie Masters’s cottage was on one side and the big white house was on the other. ‘Do you know the woman who lives there?’ Vera nodded towards the cottage.

‘No, I’ve seen people in there. A mother and a child. Are they permanent tenants? It always used to be a holiday place.’

‘Her name’s Masters,’ Vera said. ‘Connie Masters.’ Hannah stirred. ‘Wasn’t she the social worker supervising Mattie Jones?’

‘That’s right. Did your mother talk about her?’ ‘I didn’t realize she lived here. Mum felt sorry for her. About the way she’d been treated in the press. Because she screwed up over Elias Jones.’