Vera spent all day in the hotel lounge at the Willows. Most of the guests had left, despite Ryan Taylor’s reassurance that the sandbags would keep out the flood. The place was silent and gloomy; there was little natural light from outside despite the long windows. She’d shouted at him to switch off the background music after ‘Walking Back to Happiness’ had come round for the third time on the taped loop; she felt as if the tune were mocking her for her inability to get the case right.

She’d decided on inaction, at least for today. Waiting was always torture to her and she understood it was a risk. If he knew what was in her mind, Joe Ashworth would be horrified. He’d recommend arrests, dramatic chases through the countryside. And of course she could be wrong. The idea had come to her sitting here, listening to the young waiter describe how Jenny Lister had waited here on the morning of her death for someone who never turned up. It wasn’t much to build a case on. And even if she were right, Vera thought, there’d be no guarantee of a conviction. A guilty plea would be better for everyone. The decision to wait having been made, it was better that she stay here where she would do no harm. If she went out, she might put in her huge, wellie-clad foot and upset the delicate balance that she sensed now existed. There was always a danger of further violence.

So she sat in the big floral armchair by the window and occasionally summoned her team members to her. More often she spoke on the phone, sometimes persuading and sometimes swearing. Once she threw it across the room, and she had to retrieve it from the silk chaise longue where it had landed. Doreen, the elderly waitress, brought her cups of coffee, cheese sandwiches, hard scones and butter. Every hour or so Vera would pull herself to her feet and stamp around the room to bring the feeling back into her limbs. She’d stand in front of the fire, which at last seemed to throw out some warmth, or waddle to the toilet, then return to her seat and continue to scribble notes that charted the progress of the case.

Once she stopped for ten minutes to stare outside at a rainbow that spanned the valley. But the sun, which had come out briefly, was soon covered again by cloud and the rainbow faded and then disappeared.