That was a question he’d asked himself, though he had absolutely no intention of admitting it to Sally. He stared down into the inky-red dregs in the bottom of his glass. ‘We didn’t have a choice. It was Bailsgrove or bust.’

Putting down her glass, Sally clasped her hands behind the back of his neck. ‘Is the unit really that broke?’ He nodded. ‘Look, I know a few people from my time in the Gloucestershire force. I could ask around, see what the lie of the land is after the suicide. What was the woman’s name again?’

‘Kinsella – Dr Beth Kinsella. It’s sweet of you, Sal, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. We’ve already said we’ll do it.’

‘Well, at least you’d know what you’re in for. And it might help cut through some of the red tape.’

David leant forward and gave her a long, lingering kiss. ‘Don’t ever let me forget. You’re an absolute treasure.’

‘Coming from an archaeologist I suppose I should take that as a compliment.’

Clare sat alone in the spare room of her Salisbury flat surrounded by cardboard boxes. It had been more than two years now since Stephen’s death and still she found herself enmeshed in what was left of his life.

She’d forced herself to go through all of his personal effects within the first few months after he’d died. There was no denying it had been tough. There were so many memories of their life together. But that’s exactly why she’d known she had to get on with it there and then. If she’d left them she knew she’d never be able to bring herself to do it. And there was another reason too. She’d had to sell their house.

Downsizing was a bit of an understatement for the scale of change her life had been subjected to following her husband’s death. He’d left her everything. But it had become increasingly clear as time had moved on that everything amounted to almost nothing. The biggest shock came when she’d discovered that Stephen had remortgaged the house without so much as mentioning it to her. Their home, her home. It was in his name so legally he’d had every right to do what he liked with it. But when she’d found out she couldn’t help feeling betrayed.

In life he’d provided for her every whim, at least in material terms: a substantial detached house in the home counties, exotic foreign holidays, the best restaurants. But in return she’d given up everything. Including, she now realised, the person that she might have been.