Now it was my turn to sound irritated again. “If you want to get to the bottom of this story with Merry Wood then asking questions is the only way.” Pictures of Lily gazing across at the empty, shadowy house skipped through my head. “So, can I have your grandmother’s telephone number please?”

The ghost of a brief, admiring smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before vanishing again. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

Once Flynn had given me his grandmother’s mobile telephone number and left, I searched around the office for Kerry.

“Do you know where she is?” I asked Orion.

“She didn’t say where she was going. All she said was that she had to pop out.” Orion raised her brows in a charged way. “I guess you don’t have to worry when you’re the editor’s niece.”

I waited until Monday lunchtime to call, when a few of my colleagues disappeared to the deli across the road to buy their lunch and bring it back to the office.

I requested an Emmental cheese and salad ciabatta and one of their delicious Christmas cinnamon cupcakes to have with my afternoon tea, which Orion said she would bring back for me.

The hush in the office was almost comforting.

I snatched down the post-it that was stuck on the side of my PC terminal with the phone number Flynn had scrawled on it.

It rang for an agonisingly long time until a husky female voice answered with a curt, “Yes?”

“Good afternoon. Is that Ms Astrid Talbot?”

“It is. Who am I speaking to?”

In the background I could hear a rush of waves and the intermittent burst of passionate Spanish from what sounded like a busy taverna. Glasses chimed and chairs scraped.

“I’m Leonie Baxter. I’m a journalist with Goddess magazine in Scotland.”

“Right. And may I ask why you’re calling me?”

“It’s about your ex-husband, Mrs Talbot. Flynn.”

The line fell silent for a few moments. “Yes, I am aware of who my ex-husband is.”

Ok. Knuckles wrapped.

“What about him?” Her voice was prickly. “He’s not dead, is he?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” I assured her. “It’s more to do with your former marital home.”

“Oh, that place. Merry Wood,” she said airily. “We sold that dump donkey’s years ago. Flynn dealt with all of that.” She hesitated. “Is there a problem, because if so, you’ll have to take it up with him.”

So, she didn’t know that Merry Wood hadn’t been sold either.

I pulled my thoughts together. I couldn’t drop a bombshell like that over the phone to Spain, let alone mention Lily. It just didn’t seem right.