The student dragged his attention from his girlfriend and gave a little nod to Vera. ‘I’m Simon Eliot, Hannah’s fiancé.’

‘What did Jenny make of your engagement?’ She had to pull them into conversation, and it was impossible to ignore the relationship between them. It would have been impossible too, surely, for Jenny to ignore it.

‘She thought we were too young.’ Hannah slid from Simon’s knee and took the chair beside him, though her hand still rested on his leg. ‘We wanted to get married this summer, but she asked us to wait.’

‘And did you agree?’

‘In the end. At least until Simon gets his MA. Another year. It seems like a lifetime, but in the scheme of things . . .’

‘Why marry at all?’ Vera asked. ‘Why not just live together like everyone else?’

‘That’s just it!’ For the moment Hannah seemed to have forgotten her mother’s death. Her eyes gleamed. ‘We’re not like everyone else. What we have is so special. We wanted a special gesture to reflect that. We wanted everyone to know that we intend to spend the rest of our lives together.’

Vera thought that Hannah’s parents had made similar promises when they married, but that relationship had hardly survived their daughter’s birth. They’d probably started off with ideals too. But Hannah was young and romantic, and it would have been cruel to disillusion her. Now, this student was all she had to cling on to.

‘But Jenny had nothing against Simon?’

‘Of course not! We all got on together very well. Mum was just over-protective. Since Dad left there’d only been the two of us. I suppose it was hard for her to accept that there was someone else in my life.’

Vera turned to the man. ‘And your parents. What did they make of the prospect of your marrying so soon?’

He gave a little shrug. ‘They weren’t over the moon. They’d have come round.’

‘Simon’s mother’s a snob,’ Hannah said. ‘A social worker’s daughter wasn’t quite what she had planned for him.’ She smiled to show there was no ill will.

There was a pause. It seemed to Vera that they’d all been colluding in avoiding discussing Jenny Lister’s murder. For a moment they’d wanted to pretend that nothing dreadful had happened, that the worst thing going on in their lives was a vague parental uneasiness about an early marriage.

‘When did you last see your mother?’ Vera asked, keeping the same tone – nosy neighbour.

‘This morning,’ Hannah said. ‘At breakfast. I’d got up early to have it with her. I’m on Easter holiday, but I wanted to do some serious revision for my A levels. Prove to Simon’s parents that I do have a brain, even though I’m planning to go to art school instead of a fancy uni.’

‘Did she discuss her plans for the day?’

‘Yes, she was going for a swim on the way into work. She does a lot of evenings, so she doesn’t have to start at nine.’