‘How awful.’ There were tears in Meredith’s eyes. She couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it, Gemma thought, not unless she was a consummate actress.

‘Did you hear anything on Saturday night, after Andrea left?’ Mavis said, in an unnecessarily loud voice. ‘And did you see her leave? What time was it?’

Meredith sighed. ‘I did tell you this on Sunday. No, I didn’t hear a thing. Pete thought something had woken him, maybe a splash, but I sleep really heavily and I’d had a few glasses of wine. I didn’t wake up till seven. I didn’t see her leave that night. She said goodbye to me before I went to the loo – I was in there a while because I wanted to give them some time alone without making it look obvious. I was hoping they’d kiss … and they did. First and last time.’ Her voice shook.

‘And what time was that?’

She heaved another great sigh. ‘I’m not sure exactly. It wasn’t really late. She wasn’t drinking, of course, being pregnant, and said she was tired. I think it was about half past ten.’

‘What time did you and Pete turn in that night? And why did you stay there instead of going home?’ Mavis wasn’t even looking at her as he asked this, so Gemma sought out Meredith’s eyes and held them, in a gesture of solidarity.

‘I often sleep on the boat. Pete’s got a spare berth he calls my bedroom.’

‘What did you do during the day on Saturday? Did you see Andrea at all before she came over?’

Mavis was scribbling notes in his illegible spidery scrawl. He had terrible handwriting and held his pen in a hunched-over way, as if shielding what he was writing from prying eyes.

‘I’d stayed there on Friday night too. Got up about nine – Pete had already gone, he left for his workshop about half eight. I was awake from sevenish – I always am – but I was kind of messing round on my phone, and dozing for a couple of hours because it was Saturday. Then I made some bread, cleaned the place up a bit for Pete, had a shower.’

‘Did you see Andrea in the daytime, before she came over in the evening?’ Gemma asked. ‘We’re not clear on her movements that day.’