‘May I send a copy of this voicemail to my phone?’ asked Steph.

‘I don’t see why not. I play it sometimes, just to hear her voice.’ Sonia gave a small sniff and as she looked away from Steph two swollen globes of tears dropped onto her lap. She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes. ‘Sorry about that. It still gets me.’

Steph reached out and touched her arm. She felt a compassion for this woman who clearly loved her daughter, something Steph could never imagine her own mother displaying. ‘It’s bound to. Take a moment while I sort this voicemail out. Would you like me to get you another coffee?’

‘Thank you, that would be nice.’

It was certainly a strange message, but Steph wasn’t sure it was referring to Elizabeth’s marriage. However, she couldn’t deny her interest was piqued even further, but before she committed herself to anything she needed to ask Sonia some more questions. Returning to the table, she slid another cup of coffee towards her.

‘What was Elizabeth’s relationship with her husband like?’

Sonia let out a sigh. ‘On the face of it, they appeared happy, and they definitely were when they first got married, but once they were living up there at the Sinclair place things started to go wrong. I could tell from the way she spoke – she stopped telling me how wonderful Harry was and started complaining about him.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, just the usual. Working too hard. Never having time for her. They used to do quite a lot of things – holidays, weekends away, visiting friends – but that all fizzled out. I think Elizabeth was bored, to be honest. She had nothing to do and playing housewife all day really wasn’t her thing. You know, she was very clever. She had a good business brain and I think she hoped it would be put to use up there, but it wasn’t. All they did was give her a PR role, which basically meant updating the website and posting on social media.’

‘It doesn’t sound bad enough that someone would want to murder her though,’ said Steph. ‘I can’t help thinking there must be more. What exactly did she mean when she said she’d got herself into something?’ It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Sonia answered anyway.

‘Like I said, the marriage. She’d got herself married and was in too deep just to walk away. I suppose she wasn’t able to support herself financially. She was scared of not having a future.’

Steph remained unconvinced. She placed the phone on the table. ‘Do you think there could possibly be anything else she was scared of?’