‘Look,’ she said, ‘please can you just spare a few minutes? That’s all I ask.’

‘I’m closing the door now.’

Irene forced herself forward until her foot was in the doorway. She had never done anything like this in her life before. This strong young woman towered over her and fear pulsed through her in a way she couldn’t entirely justify.

Then Anastasia did something that shocked Irene more than any violence could have done. She smiled.

It was a dazzling smile, like something from a toothpaste advertisement. Her eyes positively shone. Irene, confused, felt her own face beginning to respond in kind but this was all wrong.

‘Would you mind?’

Irene looked down and found herself removing her foot.

When she looked back up, the young woman’s face was a mask of stone.

She leaned a little closer, so Irene could smell something bad on her breath, and in a low voice said, ‘Get your fat arse off my doorstep. I don’t know anything about any fucking Michael Copeland.’

The door was slammed with such force that Irene felt the draught of it gusting against her face. A strange kind of triumph was cutting through the shock of the encounter though, and she banged her fist against the wood again.

‘I never told you our surname!’ she shouted. ‘You did know him!’

Irene began to shout up at the window.

‘My son hated heights! Why would he go to that cliff if he hated heights! You know something about this, I know you do!’ She couldn’t seem to stop.

She became aware then that two people were standing near her on the pavement. One of them was Frank, whose expression was one of total horror at her yelling like a fishwife in the street. Her cheeks burned, and she cast her eyes to the other person, a tall, thin young man with messy dark curls and a complexion that could have been Mediterranean. He had soft brown eyes and a neat beard and was looking equally horrified.

‘What’s going on here?’ he said, his voice low. ‘Why are you shouting at my house?’

Why indeed? Irene cleared her throat and patted her hair at the back. She couldn’t really get her breath.

‘My son is dead,’ she said. Her voice fractured as she felt her knees sag from under her, then there were two sets of arms holding her up.

‘Let’s go, Irene, come on,’ said Frank. ‘We’ll get you back to the car. I think we’re finished here.’

‘Look, is she alright?’ said the young man. He sounded genuinely concerned, which made Irene twist her head to stare at him, despite the fact that her whole body appeared to be made from jelly. His eyes were kind.