‘Good heavens. And his car’s here. Do you think I should get the garden lads to do a search of the grounds? Did anybody see him leave last night?’

They all shook their heads. Meredith couldn’t meet anybody’s eye.

‘He’s walked into the village before, hasn’t he? When he’s…’ Mo tailed off, not wanting to drop Ralph in it by saying ‘been too pissed to drive’, but they all knew what she meant.

‘Has Paula rung round the hospitals?’ the Earl asked Meredith.

‘Yeah. Nothing. I said I’d go over and see her after work. I’ll work through lunch and leave early, if that’s OK?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Well, this is all most concerning. I do hope he hasn’t come to any harm.’

Meredith thought of herself scattering Ralph’s popped shirt buttons in her flowerbed like incriminating seeds. Seeds that, if they were to sprout roots, would only produce terrible seedlings of guilt and remorse.

‘So do I,’ she said fervently.

The meeting dragged on for another half an hour or so, but it was clear nobody was really paying attention. Ceri’s eyes kept going glassy and she had to stop doing her shorthand squiggles to press a tissue against her lower lids and sigh heavily, before half-heartedly resuming.

Eventually all thirteen items on the agenda had been raced through, and they were released back to their respective offices. The rest of the day passed without incident for Meredith, apart from a young woman with learning disabilities who tried to steal a packet of Minstead House fudge. She didn’t even have the heart to tell the shoplifter off. The girl started to cry as soon as Meredith pointed out she’d spotted her dropping the fudge into the open top of her backpack, and gave her back the fudge.

Hester returned at around half past three, a hand pressed to her rapidly swelling cheek and her lip drooping slightly, and Meredith found herself wishing that Hester wasn’t quite so stoic. She had no option now but to go to Paula’s and face the music.

11

Meredith

Paula opened her front door, clinging onto it as if it was the only thing holding her up. Meredith had to prise her fingers off the frame and steer her by the elbow through to the kitchen.

The kitchen was a mess, the counters covered with a random selection of seemingly unconnected items: a heap of tarnished spoons in an untidy pile; flies buzzing around a huge pile of half-chopped tomatoes; a baking tray lined with silver foil next to some brown fluffy wool; a purple ukulele on one of the stools at the breakfast bar; some shrivelled-up leaves and a small pair of knitting needles.

It reminded Meredith again of her image of Minstead House in kit form. Perhaps this was the personification of what a mental breakdown looked like: foil, cutlery, tomatoes, knitting…