‘I don’t think the press have got to her yet.’ Veronica seemed less hostile. Had she thought she might be the subject of his attention? ‘She didn’t mention anything to me about going away.’

‘Is there anywhere in the village she might be?’

Veronica appeared to consider, but he could tell she had already dismissed the idea out of hand. ‘She hasn’t made any close friends here. I must say, it seems unlikely.’

Perhaps because she was so offhand, Joe stayed on the doorstep. Vera had taught him to be stubborn, to face down the snotty middle classes. ‘It must have been hard,’ he said, ‘to see another child in the cottage down there.’

She looked at him with distaste. If he’d farted at one of her smart dinner parties, she couldn’t have despised him more.

‘I’m not entirely sure why you think you have the right to dig around in my family’s personal tragedies.’

He ignored that and continued, as if he were thinking aloud and no response were required. ‘There would have been an inquiry, I’m sure. A sudden death and the police would have been involved. Social services too, I expect. People must have talked. It can’t have been easy.’

Veronica lost control. The disintegration was sudden and completely unexpected, and it made him feel like a worm. Her face was flushed and she ranted at him, the words beating against him, making him flinch. ‘Do you really think I cared about that? I’d just lost my son. Do you imagine I worried that people might be talking?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And it wasn’t just me. Christopher had lost his baby boy. I knew I couldn’t bear to have any more children after him. Simon had lost his brother. Have you any idea what that did to us?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ashworth said again.

It was as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘We never blamed Simon for what happened that day. Never. He was a child. But he was old enough to remember it. He knew he shouldn’t have run away from me. He thinks it was his fault. He’s had to live with the knowledge all his life. Do you think a bit of gossip is worse than the pain of that?’

‘No,’ Ashworth said. He had to stop himself putting up his hands to protect his head from the violence of the words. ‘No, of course not.’

The outburst ended as quickly as it had begun. Veronica became distant, icy, once again. ‘To answer your question, Sergeant, of course it was difficult to see a child playing where Patrick died. I had mixed feelings. Perhaps my response to Connie was coloured by my experience. I was unkind. But I’ve had nothing to do with her disappearance. I don’t know where she is.’

She made to turn away from him and shut the door, but Ashworth called her back.