‘Dad said, “Well, did you ask where she was?” I said yes, and Mark had fobbed me off, and that was that. And then, the first we heard about my aunt being missing, let alone missing for seven years, was when we received a telephone call from the State Coroner saying that Snow Delaney had applied to have her declared dead.

‘This was in 2008, I think. My first reaction, when Dad told me, was “What happened to her?” He said he had no idea, all he knew was that Snow was claiming that she had been missing for seven years – she had not been seen at all in that time – and Snow wanted her declared dead because she had a will that left everything to her and Mark.’

I asked Rebecca if the Coroner had said when it was, exactly, that Beth was supposed to have gone missing.

She said, ‘Yes, it was shortly after I visited. Mark had given a statement to the Coroner, in which he said that he’d told her I’d dropped by and she’d expressed an interest in seeing me, and a day or so later she’d put on a hat and gone out the door, saying she’d catch the bus up to my place.

‘Which is a total nonsense. She would have had no idea where I lived. I hadn’t seen her since I was a child. She wouldn’t have known how to find me, other than to call Dad, and she didn’t call Dad.

‘Besides which, everyone who saw Beth at any time in the past fifteen years was convinced that she had dementia. She never spoke any sense, not for years. And yet that very same weekend, she was supposed to have signed a new will, giving everything to Mark and Snow.’

‘I take it they wouldn’t inherit, unless your aunt was dead?’ I asked.

‘Right. Which was why we were in a difficult spot. If the Coroner said that Beth was dead, Snow and Mark would inherit the house,’ Rebecca said, ‘unless we could prove that they’d done something to make her disappear, which to me was fairly obvious.’

The Bannermans were in the process of petitioning the Coroner for an inquest when Mrs Bannerman’s remains turned up, as part of the search for Agnes Moore.

‘That must have been horrible,’ I said.

‘Oh, appalling. But to me it was pretty clear what happened,’ Rebecca said. ‘The Delaneys got the shock of their lives when I knocked on the door. Maybe they hadn’t known there was any family, or else they’d assumed that whatever family my aunt had were gone from her life.

‘It was just one day later that they had that will drawn up. I know that, because I’ve seen the date on it. I’m supposed to believe that’s a coincidence? It’s no coincidence. I strongly believe that Snow and Mark Delaney had something to do with Aunt Beth’s disappearance, and nothing will ever convince me otherwise.