‘You see,’ Ashworth went on, all reason and calm, ‘Jenny Lister’s body was found in the Willows Health Club. That’s about halfway between here and Hexham. Not very far at all. You’d have passed it on your way into the town. Another coincidence, maybe?’

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘Another coincidence.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been to the Willows a couple of times. If you have dinner in the restaurant you can use the pool. That was in the old days, while I was still married, before we had Alice, when a drive into the country on a summer night was a treat.’ She got to her feet and Ashworth thought she was going to call the interview to a close, but she went into the kitchen and fetched the jug of coffee that had been keeping warm on the filter machine. She topped up his mug without asking and refilled her own. He liked milk and sugar, but she didn’t offer those and he didn’t ask.

‘Tell me about Jenny,’ he said. ‘What sort of woman was she?’

‘Efficient,’ she said. ‘Honest. Private.’

‘Did you like her?’

Connie thought about that. ‘I admired her,’ she said. ‘She never let anyone get in close enough to know if we liked her or not. Nobody at work at least. That was her survival technique, I guess. Some people in social services work the other way: all their mates are people in the same business, who understand the stress and frustration. Jenny always said she wanted to leave her job at the office door. Maybe that was why she chose to live so far away from base.’ She paused before continuing. ‘Jenny was always convinced she was right. Always. She listened to the arguments, but once she’d made up her mind about a situation you couldn’t shift her.’

Ashworth thought he had colleagues like that too. And there were plenty of people in the police service who didn’t like to mix work and home. Most of his mates were cops and that was easier because they could get the jokes, share the tension, but some officers didn’t want to know once the shift was over. It made them a bit isolated, outsiders in the team. Had Jenny come across in that way: aloof, maybe even patronizing?

‘Did she talk about her family at all?’

‘I knew she had a daughter, but that was only because Jenny had a photo of a girl on her desk and I asked about her. And when my husband left, Jenny said the same thing had happened to her, when her child was very young. Apart from that, nothing.’

‘You can’t think, then, who might have wanted to kill her.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she had threats,’ Connie said easily, ‘over the years. We all had those.’

‘What do you mean?’

She looked at him as if he were stupid. ‘Our work involved removing children from their families, usually against their will. Of course there were people who hated us. We were challenging their ability to be parents, violating their homes, making them look incompetent or cruel to their neighbours. What do you think the reaction was like? Often it was violent and abusive.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But do I think one of Jenny’s clients killed her? Absolutely not. Most of them live chaotic and disorganized lives and that’s why their children are at risk. No way could they plan a murder like that. They couldn’t even get to the Willows, never mind blag their way inside the health club. I don’t know who killed Jenny Lister, but I’d be astounded if it had anything to do with her being a social worker.’