‘What did you talk about then?’ Vera was struggling to imagine it. These two middle-aged, middle-class women spending all that time together. Wouldn’t they just run out of things to say? She’d never had that sort of friendship. She was growing quite close to the hippy-dippy neighbours who had the smallholding next to her house in the hills. Some evenings they got pissed together on her whisky and their dreadful home-made wine. She’d help them when the sheep needed clipping or the hens had escaped. But to spend hours, just talking . . .

‘Recently, I suppose, it was me talking and her listening.’ Anne seemed strained suddenly, and Vera thought now that she’d been tense throughout the conversation. It wasn’t just that her best friend had been murdered. Perhaps she was that sort of woman – nervous, anxious. Perhaps that was why she’d chosen to spend her professional career teaching well-brought-up bairns in a pleasant rural school. She wouldn’t manage stress of any kind.

Anne took a deep breath and continued, ‘Recently my marriage has been going through a bad patch. Sort of mid-life crisis, I suppose. I was attracted to a new member of staff at school. Nothing happened, not really, but feeling like a besotted teenager unsettled me. Jenny made me see how ridiculous I was being. She said that John and I had just built this place, spent years getting it perfect and, having achieved it, everything seemed like an anticlimax. I was just looking for something exciting. I’m sure she was right.’

God, Vera thought, what self-indulgent drivel. I’d rather spend time with an honest criminal any day than with this introspective woman.

‘She was going to come to France with us this time, but she decided not to. She said John and I needed some time to ourselves. She was that sort of friend.’

‘What about her?’ Vera said briskly. ‘Did she have any men friends?’

‘I’m not sure.’

So, it seemed the confidences had all gone one way. Jenny had been happy to listen to her friend talking about her adolescent crush, but had given nothing in return. Discretion, it seemed, was a part of her personal as well as her professional life. What secrets did she have to hide?

‘Recently I thought there might have been someone,’ Anne said suddenly. ‘She cancelled one of our Wednesday nights at the last minute, without a proper excuse. And she seemed very happy. Glowing.’

‘Didn’t you ask her what was going on?’ Now Vera was really starting to lose patience. This woman was sounding like a soppy story from a magazine.

‘She said she was in a relationship, but she couldn’t talk about it,’ Anne said.

‘Where did she meet her mystery lover?’ Vera couldn’t help herself. ‘The flamenco class?’

‘No!’ Anne seemed shocked by the thought. ‘No, really, I don’t think so. And if she had, why wouldn’t she tell me?’

‘Why all the secrecy then?’

‘I thought maybe she’d started seeing a colleague.’ Anne looked awkward. ‘Or a married man.’