She hurried over, wanting to catch Ruth before she got to her car, not caring if it was obvious that she was coming from the trees by the river, where she had no reason to be unless she’d been spying on the workshop. ‘Ruth!’

Ruth turned with a cry, then fell back against her Passat, pressing her hand against her chest.

‘I’ve been knocking and knocking,’ Charlie told her. ‘Since five thirty. But you know that, don’t you? You were in there all the time. Sitting in the pitch black with the door locked.’

‘I was thinking,’ said Ruth. Her voice lost itself in the biting wind that blew strands of hair in her face. ‘Trying to decide what to do.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yes.’ From her puffy eyelids and the chapped skin between her nose and upper lip, it was clear that crying had played a significant part in the decision-making process. ‘I wasn’t completely honest with you before, and it got me nowhere. I thought you’d laugh me out of the police station if I told you the full story.’

‘Where’s Aidan?’ Charlie asked curtly. What did the silly cow expect—a card saying, ‘Congratulations, you’ve stopped lying’?

‘I don’t know. I don’t know when he’ll be back. I don’t know much, but I’m willing to tell you what I do know, if you’ll help me. You’ve got to.’ Ruth grabbed Charlie’s arm. ‘He said he was going to kill her.’

‘What?’ A remark like that couldn’t be ignored, even if it came from the least trustworthy person on the planet, which Ruth Bussey might very well be, Charlie thought. ‘Who said he was going to kill who?’

‘Aidan. Mary. He called her “that bitch”. He’s not in Manchester—I rang Jeanette at the City Art Gallery. He wasn’t there last weekend . . .’

‘Slow down. You’re not making sense.’

Ruth shivered convulsively in her crumpled white shirt. Charlie had her coat in the boot of her Audi. ‘Leave your car,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive you home and we can talk there.’ She would get inside that bloody lodge house one way or another. She’d been irritated all day by the thought of Malcolm Goat-man Fenton trying to keep her out.

‘A man’s been following me,’ said Ruth, as they walked down Demesne Avenue to Charlie’s car. ‘No, that’s wrong. Not following—he doesn’t stalk me when I go out or anything, but he walks past my house. With a black Labrador.’ Having started to talk, she seemed unable to stop—the words flowed out, devoid of tone, as if all she wanted was to get it over with. ‘I first noticed him last June. He was there every day for a while. Then he disappeared, for months. I thought he’d stopped but . . . he came back on Sunday, yesterday. I can show you—I’ve got him on tape. I saw him this morning too. Aidan says he’s just walking his dog in the park. He gets impatient when I mention it, calls me paranoid, but he’s never seen him, the way he looks at the house.’