‘I know. That’s what you said, but that’s just weird. And every time the subject of your husband comes up, you always look guilty. So when you revealed you’ve been keeping all of the world’s newspapers since 1970, well, I put two and two together. 1970 was the year your husband died, wasn’t it?’

‘His name was Philippos.’

‘And for some reason you can’t let go. Which is why you still wear your ring, and why you’ve got this mad Aladdin’s cave of every newspaper that’s been published since then. And all I can think is, all of this is because you did wrong when he died. So I started looking. I reckoned I had to look at the very bottom of the bottom-most piles, and I’d find the newspaper that sparked all this off.

‘So I’ve been digging through every paper from 1970 I could find. The Maidenhead Advertiser, Henley Advertiser, Windsor Echo, Marlow Free Press, Reading Evening Post. And then I found it.’

Suzie handed the old article to Becks, who started reading it avidly.

Judith was still rooted to the spot, but she could feel anger bubbling up inside her. This was why she didn’t let people into her house. It was why she kept these rooms behind lock and key. If people didn’t know anything about you, they couldn’t betray you, could they? And anyway, Judith knew that no one would understand that her need to keep the newspapers wasn’t based on any kind of a weakness on her part, it was simply a habit she’d got into. That’s all.

At first, when she’d returned from Greece after Philippos’s funeral, she’d kept them because she needed to know the papers weren’t printing any more lies about her. And once she’d got into the routine, well, it was hard to know when to stop, wasn’t it? After a few weeks? Months? As far as Judith was concerned, it was entirely natural that collecting newspapers and other printed materials had evolved into becoming an end in itself. She found it comforting. Like the feeling of security you’d get in the old days from owning a full set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. She had all local knowledge here in these three rooms.

And it was useful, wasn’t it? After all, who’d have known in 1970 when she’d started out that, many decades later, she’d be using her archive to identify a potential murderer?

‘The article says someone else was on the boat at the time,’ Becks said, breaking into Judith’s reverie.

‘That’s what I noticed as well,’ Suzie said.

‘They were mistaken,’ Judith said, wanting to get her rebuttal in first.

‘Although I must say,’ Becks continued, ‘this sounds terrible. I had no idea you were interviewed by the police. That it was considered a suspicious death. It must have been horrible.’