The same shadow swallowed Marilyn Luckhurst up as she turned and hurried away. The same darkened living room greeted the two officers, the same floorboards squeaked their disdain as she took up her pacing. This time Joel hung back to stand in the doorway while his colleague stepped into the room. And waited. The silence in that small, sparse space grew until it must have felt like it was pushing out at the sides, threatening to crush Marilyn with its pressure. She looked even more fragile today, thinner somehow, her pacing that of someone approaching a finishing line and ready to fall the moment they passed. Joel was feeling the pressure too. Anxiety gnawed at him – they were running out of time. He covered his mouth with his hand to stop barking out demands for answers. DS Rose would surely be just as desperate but he felt he could trust her. She knew what she was doing.

DS Rose finally spoke. She had perched on an arm of the sofa.

‘From the beginning’ was all she said and Marilyn stopped her pacing just long enough to throw her a look. She crossed the room twice more before she replied.

‘Our children … St Peter and St Paul’s … That’s my church. I go there a lot. We talk about the children, they’re all our children. That’s what I meant but that doesn’t mean you were wrong. The church is where I met Angela Maddox …’ She halted again for more eye contact, like this name should mean something to the two officers. It didn’t. Not instantly. Joel had done his best to read and memorise the key points from Hannah’s casefile, and he was good with names, but he was certain that was a new one.

‘I don’t think I’ve met Angela,’ DS Rose said.

‘You won’t either. Angela was knocked down. By a car, a year ago now. She was a lovely woman. It was very sad. It was so sad …’

‘She was your friend?’ DS Rose said and Joel shifted his stance, his desperation to speed things up threatening to burst out of him.

‘Church was the only place I could ever go without Nicholas, the only place he would let me go on my own. I used to take Emma when she was younger but she’s not interested anymore. Angela was always nice, always just … happy. Great with Emma! And then she was just gone. It was in the papers, a joy-rider knocked her down when she was out walking her dog. The world is so terrifying.’

‘It can be. Marilyn, I talked about Hannah, about finding the missing Evans boy, does that have anything to do with Angela?’