Many of the bridges that were down would take time to repair or replace but at least one of the roads to Derry was now passable, which meant that those who had come for the charity cycle could now leave if they wanted to. I assumed Derek and Amanda would be gone as soon as Bob’s body was released, and that Jude, Sue and Peadar would leave as soon as Lissa was released from hospital. Two families just waiting on a green light. Two families I’d now discovered were far more connected than I’d previously been led to believe.

My mind was reeling with what I’d just discovered. There was a now a double connection between Jude Burns and the dead man. It put the frosty exchange I’d witnessed between the two men on Friday night into a new context, and also the exchange between Amanda and Sue in the Beacon Hall. And possibly, the row between Amanda and Bob that Mary had overheard and witnessed.

If Sue was Bob Jameson’s daughter, then presumably he’d had an affair with Jude’s wife, the wife he rarely mentioned. Was she still around? I wondered. Had they divorced? Did Amanda know that Sue was Bob’s daughter? If so, how had Bob having a child with someone else affected her when she’d been struggling to conceive? Sue was older than their two adopted children. Was that what had caused her breakdown? Phyllis had implied that Amanda had mental health difficulties when trying to conceive but also more recently. Sue worked in the hospital where Amanda had been a patient and Bob had served on the board. Had the relationship been exposed then? And the six-million-dollar question – did Jude know?

I was surprised to see Jude himself with Phyllis in the Oak. They looked cozy at a table by the fire and they didn’t notice us come in. As I watched them laugh together, I wondered for the first time if something could happen there. I would have been pleased before, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was decidedly possible that Jude had something to do with Bob’s death. He’d have had good reason to hate him if he’d had an affair with his wife and made him take the fall for the bank. But all of that happened such a long time ago. Why wait so long to take his revenge?