Gemma took two glasses down from a shelf and ran the tap to fill them with cold water, thinking how glad she was that she hadn’t succumbed to the sneaky glass of Rioja she’d been tempted by just half an hour ago. Imagine Lincoln smelling it on her breath! She glanced at Meredith’s wineglass – it didn’t look like she’d downed any more since Gemma had been on the phone to Lincoln. That was good. It would be far from ideal if Meredith was under the influence when interviewed.

‘Do I need a lawyer?’ Meredith’s voice was tiny and thin.

‘You’re not under arrest so, no, not unless you want one. We just need to get a proper record of what happened, on tape. OK?’

‘OK.’

There were oven gloves on a hook near the Aga, so Gemma slotted one hand into each end, lifting the heavy iron pot off the stove and placing it on a mat on the table. Steam rushed out in a thick cloud when she took off the lid, and the smell of the succulent meat made her mouth water. She ladled a couple of spoonfuls into two bowls and handed one to Meredith, who merely gazed at it as if she didn’t know what she was meant to do with it.

As Gemma hung the gloves back up, something else glove-related occurred to her:

‘Can I ask you a slightly personal question, Meredith?’

Meredith shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

‘Your scar … I know Mark asked you about it before, but it’s obvious that you’re self-conscious about it. How come you don’t wear gloves? Wouldn’t that be easier for you than people staring at it all the time?’

As if to demonstrate, Meredith slid her damaged hand under her buttock on the chair; an instinctive movement.

‘I used to,’ she said, quietly. ‘When I first got the job here. It’s hard to hide it when you work in a shop. But one glove makes you look like a weirdo – I kept getting comments about Michael Jackson, or people just outright sniggered. Two gloves isn’t much better – not to mention just being totally impractical. You can’t use a phone, wash your hands, type – none of the things I need to do a lot of the time…’

She paused, pulled out her hand and studied the scar, turning her hand this way and that as the steam from the bowls gradually died down.

‘I thought I’d get used to it, but I never have. I did plan to have reconstructive surgery – you know, a skin graft – but once I took the job here, I never got round to it, I suppose. I just learned to block out the sight of it; and I do, most of the time.’