“It’s hardly your fault,” I said, although even as I uttered the words, I was aware of Jude’s frosty exchange with the dead man in almost the exact same spot where we were standing now, and his words in Phyllis’s flat and just now. Why did he hate him so much?

There was a pause, as if Jude was aware of that himself. And for a second, I wondered if he was going to tell me. Then he seemed to refocus, nodding in the direction of the table where his two daughters were sitting.

“Look, why don’t you join us? It looks as if we’ve taken the only spare table. Come over and meet my daughters and my grandson.”

The toddler was playing with two teaspoons, bashing them together and chuckling, and I was still holding a relatively untouched cappuccino.

So, after Jude had ordered, I followed him over.

Chapter Twelve

BY THE TIME we arrived at the table, the toddler’s mother had extracted the teaspoons from his sticky hands and given him a napkin. She’d fashioned it into a snake, and the little boy was pushing it around the table making hissing noises. It seemed a little macabre in the circumstances, until it occurred to me that maybe this was her way of warning him to stay away from the snake if he came across it.

The mother was the sister with the madly tossed hair. The other daughter was the blonde, bleached and cropped. Both were slim and carefully made up, in contrast to the ruddy rain-beaten faces around them. The two large golfing umbrellas must have given them far more protection than mine had done. I still hadn’t collected it from Stoop’s or the bank, or wherever I’d left it.

Jude did the introductions. “This is Lissa,” he said, indicating the mother of the baby. “And this is Sue. And this little monster is Peadar.”

They looked up at me and smiled. Sue shunted in and Lissa moved from her seat, so they were on the inside bench with Peadar on his aunt’s knee, while their father and I sat facing them. Tony’s turf fire heated my face, maybe a little too much, but I didn’t care. The whole world felt damp now, so I was grateful for anything that provided a bit of dry warmth.

“Ben’s one of the local solicitors,” Jude said as he distributed the coffees. He’d ordered orange juice and toast, which Tony had said he’d bring over in a bit.

There was something pointed about the way he mentioned my profession that made me a little uncomfortable, and my suspicion was confirmed when he followed up with, “She might be able to give you some advice.”

This was more than just a friendly invitation to coffee.