Her heart was still beating uncomfortably hard, even though she’d had that strange thought before. There was something in their manner – a kind of intense focus – that alerted her to the fact they were here about something serious. Something that directly involved Irene. She brushed away a guilty feeling; she hadn’t done anything wrong. Everyone knew this was how the police made you feel.

‘Mrs Copeland,’ said the one called Jin, leaning forward in her seat and clasping her hands together in quite a mannish way for such a slip of a girl. ‘We are here about the death of your son, Michael.’

The jolt from these words brought Irene’s hand to her chest, as though to stop her heart from bursting right through her flowered blouse and onto the carpet.

‘Yes,’ she said, although it might have been so quiet only she heard it.

‘You are aware, Mrs Copeland,’ the policewoman continued in a firm, but kind voice, ‘that your son’s death was believed to be a result of suicide.’

‘Yes,’ louder now, maybe too loud.

‘Well, someone has come forward to say that they believe there may have been foul play involved.’

Foul play.

‘What does that mean exactly?’ Irene pressed the hand against her chest and tried to get her breath.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ said the other policewoman and Irene wanted them to get on with it, to explain why they were here, but she was aware that she might be on the verge of some sort of panic attack again, like when she was in that café. She didn’t want to be keeling over, so she said, ‘Yes, yes please,’ and the policewoman got up quickly.

‘Kitchen’s through there,’ said Irene, wafting her hand in the general direction.

She stared down at her hands, suddenly oddly self-conscious in the silence that remained, with the Chinese lady still looking at her.

‘There you go, have a sip of that,’ said the other one and she drank down half the glass, grateful for the distraction.

‘Are you okay to continue?’ said the Chinese one. DS Jin, that was it.

She nodded and mashed her hands together hard in her lap.

‘As I was saying, we have had a tip-off about possible—’

‘Yes, foul play, you said, already.’ Irene was suddenly impatient to hear the rest. ‘But what does that mean, exactly?’

DS Jin paused. ‘Mrs Copeland, this person claims to know for a fact that Michael was not alone at Petrel Point and that he may have been pushed from the cliff.’

It was funny, now that the words were out there, that Irene didn’t faint or cry, or pass out. She was suddenly suffused with a feeling of numb calm. Later, she would understand that it was perhaps a bitter sort of satisfaction that her deepest belief – that Michael wouldn’t have done this to her – was correct.