Joe Ashworth was already waiting for her outside Danny Shaw’s house and she got into his car to talk before they went in. The house was grander than she’d expected, an extended detached cottage with a bit of an orchard at the back. Move it halfway up a mountain and she’d have been prepared to live there herself. It stood in a valley on the edge of a hamlet halfway between Barnard Bridge and the Willows, surrounded by established trees.

She nodded towards it. ‘I thought you said they’d fallen on hard times since the recession.’

‘Probably mortgaged to the hilt,’ he said. ‘Maybe they see it as an asset to hold on to. But that’s why the mother got the job at the Willows.’

‘She’ll be at work now?’

‘I assume so.’

Out of the car, there was that cacophony of woodland birdsong that seemed to be a soundtrack to this case. She tried not to hear it, refusing to take her father’s test. The garden was wild; the lawn hadn’t had its first cut of the spring and there were weeds poking through the paving stones of the path that led from the front gate. There was the remnant of an untidy bonfire in one corner. Maybe once they’d had a weekly gardener, but that had probably been one of the expenses to go. Nearer the house they heard music.

‘Bingo!’ she said. ‘Not a wasted trip then.’

Danny was sitting outside on a paved terrace, a portable CD player on the table beside him. His legs were stretched so that his feet rested on another wooden garden chair and there was an open book on his knee. But that was lying page-down. And although his face was turned away from her, she sensed that he was sleeping. There wasn’t much warmth in the sun and he was wearing a big grey jersey, his chin buried in the collar.

‘You’ve got to make the most of it this time of year, haven’t you?’ Vera perched on the table. It rocked under her weight. The boy didn’t reply.

There was a moment of anger. Cocky little bastard. Even if he’d been asleep the question would have woken him.

‘Talk to me, lad!’