She swallows tears. She can’t cry. She has to be strong for her daughter, who looks petrified. ‘He stopped me when I was taking Snowy for a walk. Seemed pleasant enough . . . but as I was walking away I heard him say something about your gran. I thought I’d misheard him but . . .’

Tom starts pacing. ‘This is fucking unbelievable. We need to call the police. Saffy, what’s the number for DS Barnes?’ He’s already got his mobile in his hand.

‘No!’ cries Lorna, standing up. She wobbles on her one heel and has to sit down again. Her nail varnish has chipped, and her feet are dirty. ‘We can’t contact the police. He said he’ll know. He said . . . he said he knows where your gran is living.’

Lorna tells them everything – almost everything anyway. She omits the part where he threatened to hurt Saffy. She doesn’t want to scare her any more than she needs to: all this stress and worry can’t be good for the baby. ‘He said something about Gran burying the evidence. And that he wanted to know where.’

‘The evidence?’ Saffy’s face pales. ‘Is that what he said? Paperwork that Gran has?’

‘I . . . I don’t know. I don’t think he mentioned paperwork but I can’t remember. He wanted me to ask your gran. He mentioned a card,’ says Lorna. ‘I didn’t know what he was talking about.’

Saffy inhales sharply. ‘That wanker. It’s the same guy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I met someone earlier. He said he was a private detective and he’d been hired by someone to find a file or paperwork or something that Gran has. He tried to be all nice at first but I was feeling increasingly uneasy as the conversation progressed. He . . .’ She shudders. ‘He was quite intense. I felt afraid by the end. As he was leaving he gave me his card. It said G. E. Davies . . . Glen. It’s got to be the same man.’ She goes to the coffee table and picks something up. ‘Here,’ she says, handing it to Lorna.

‘He can’t be a legitimate private detective,’ says Tom, still pacing. ‘Not if he’s grabbing women in the street.’

Lorna takes the card from her daughter. It looks crude and unprofessionally done. She hands it back. ‘He specifically said evidence . . .’

Saffy pulls at her hair, looking stressed. ‘The police came today,’ she says, and Lorna listens as her daughter tells her about their visit. ‘When they were leaving I gave them Davies’s number and they said they’d check him out. We should tell them about this too.’

Lorna can’t take it all in. Finding out her mother lived here when at least one of the murders took place, and now this. It must be connected somehow. She bends over and takes off her shoes. She’ll have to see if she can glue the heel back on.