“Is that where I’d find Joan, on Silver Street?”

“Number 42. She works though, at mill.”

“What happened next?”

He seemed reluctant to continue. I urged him to pick up the story, wanting him to keep talking, remember the details of that evening, and that night.

They went inside, he said, him and Joan. Mrs. Arkwright had baked, she always did. As he was walking back towards Mrs. Farrar’s, with buns wrapped in a tea towel, he saw two of his pals. They were going into the Miners’ Institute. He didn’t go with them because he knew they’d be drinking. He’d signed the pledge when he joined the Temperance Band, although he’d really only joined for the trumpet playing.

He shouted goodnight and went on his way, going round to the back of the house, the shop door being bolted. The back door was wide open. Mrs. Farrar lay on the floor by the fender. He knelt down beside her, at first thinking she’d had a fall. He went to pick her up and that was when he knew. She was dead. He didn’t know what to do. He thought someone had broken in. He looked around to see if anyone was still there. No one was, but in the shop everything was chucked about, cash drawers pulled open, cash tin gone. He covered Mrs. Farrar with the counterpane from her bed. He was shaking, and lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. He knew she would hate for the place to be a mess. She kept everything just so. He began to clear up. He mopped the blood. Then he knew from the mess that it would take too long to put everything as it was. So he went for help.

Police and ambulance came. He had blood on him. They took him to the station and kept on at him all night, trying to make him say that he’d killed Mrs. Farrar.

I believed him when he said that he had not.

“Stephen, you said that Mrs. Farrar had seemed miserable, but on that day she was cheerful. Do you know what made her unhappy, and then what might have accounted for her change of mood?”

“People have their ups and downs.”

“But that night was different. She’d brought flowers in the house. Did she do that often?”

He thought for a moment and then seemed suddenly interested. “No, she never did. She said they belonged outside, growing as God intended.”

“Was there anything else about how she was that evening?”

“When I came in with fish and chips, she was singing. She was singing, I don’t know, daft stuff. “The Grand Old Duke of York.” I thought it was a bit funny for her to be singing a nursery rhyme.”

“Do you think she was expecting someone?”

“She never said.”

“Did she get many visitors?”

“Not really.”

“Any?”

“Only neighbours coming in the shop.”

I took out the sketch of the unknown man. “Have you ever seen this person?”