Morgan and Ashworth were standing close to the window that looked over a small garden at the back of the house, in the middle of a conversation. Vera had been expecting hostility: she’d be really pissed off if two strangers came into her house and started shouting the odds. But Morgan seemed only faintly amused. He was better-looking in the flesh than his photos had led her to expect: a striking face with very blue eyes. She’d checked out all the old newspaper pictures of him, but wouldn’t have recognized him in the street; he’d shaved his head since the trial and now had the look of an Eastern monk – the image, she guessed, he was aiming at. He came up to her, arm outstretched to shake her hand. ‘And you are?’

‘Vera Stanhope. Detective Inspector.’

He was wearing loose cotton trousers and a cotton shirt with no collar. The sort of gear her hippy neighbour went in for. It came to her that this man could well have come to the next-door parties.

‘I was just explaining to Mr Morgan that we’re sorry to disturb him,’ Ashworth said.

‘And I’ve told him that I’m always pleased to help the police in any way I can.’ Morgan nodded for them to take a seat. The futon was as uncomfortable as Vera had known it would be. It creaked. It hadn’t been made for someone of her weight, and she wasn’t sure if she’d make it to her feet unaided at the end of the interview.

‘Would you like tea?’ The man smiled at them. ‘I have camomile, peppermint . . .’

‘Just a few questions,’ Vera said. ‘We’ll not take up too much of your time.’

He smiled again and sat on the floor facing them. The movement was fluid, very graceful, and it came to Vera, unbidden, that he’d be very good at sex. The physical stuff. Was that part of his attraction? She felt a moment of panic, of the old regret that time was slipping past. Then something close to lust.

There was a silence. Ashworth and Morgan waited for her to speak. Morgan was looking at her as if he understood her discomfort, with compassionate blue eyes that held her attention. Sod him! Did she need his pity? She might want his body, but that was something quite different.

‘Is it right that you’ve got that lass of yours pregnant?’

She felt that Ashworth relaxed as soon as she’d spoken. This was what he’d been expecting, a full-on attack.

‘I think we both had something to do with that. But, yes, Freya’s going to have a baby. We’re delighted.’ He gave a slow smile and though Vera despised his attitude, she still couldn’t take her eyes from his face.

‘But Mattie’s not, is she?’

‘What’s this about, Inspector? Why are you here?’ The tone was still easy.