I hadn’t known how to respond. I think I looked a little petulant, like a child about to stamp their feet. What did I actually want? What would I have asked for if given the chance?

‘The body’s gone,’ I said. ‘There are old bones and scraps of clothes and bits of coffin under the branches of the laurel but the body we saw – it’s been moved.’

He’d shaken his head at that. Flicked a finger at Felicity, as if to tell me to say no more that would upset her. I’d wanted to shout at the ceiling. Wanted to start smashing things. I think he saw that in my eyes. Saw that I wasn’t going to be pacified with tea and the warmth of the kitchen.

Chivers never came to my door. I sat in the kitchen all night, waiting for the lights of his car to illuminate the blackness beyond the glass. Nobody came. The silence was absolute. I angled the chair so as to be able to hear the telephone if it rang in the hallway but it stayed maddeningly silent as the evening wore on. I had changed out of my damp clothes when I finished my long, soaking trudge back up the hill. I’d wanted to put on nothing more than a bathrobe or to simply wrap myself in a blanket but I had expected Chivers, and perhaps even a detective or two. I’d expected questions. Gentle probing. Conspiratorial glances and intelligent eyes. So I dressed smartly: a person to be taken seriously. White woollen polo-neck sweater and a black skirt. Even found my wedding ring at the bottom of the cutlery drawer and slipped it on. It was too big. Slid around on my finger like a hula hoop. I kept it on nonetheless. I was a married woman. I’d been to university. I’d suffered bereavement and I’d seen more of the world than any of them. If I said I’d seen a body then I was damn well to be believed. Nobody came. Nobody came the next day either. I rattled around the house, floating aimlessly into rooms I barely remembered having visited before.