We waited for longer than was comfortable. Then she told us. Told us about the man Loz had seen and spoken to and sent to Fairfax’s house. A man in a blue suit with a recording device and a canvas bag. He’d seen somebody he recognized and wanted to be sure. Wanted to know so badly that he went straight to a stranger’s door.

I left it a moment after she finished. Wanted to give John his chance to say something. But he never. It were me as spoke.

‘I found a page of writing paper in the church,’ I said, quietly. ‘Under a stone, in a locked box. There were footprints in the dust. It looked like somebody had tried to burn it. Just a page. Why would he do that? Why keep it there then make it so easy to see where it might be?’

Cordelia played with the collar of her jumper, pulling the moist material away from her skin. There were newspapers beside her on the sofa and she scanned the headlines as she thought. I remember seeing her eyes as being like a blur but I probably imagined that. Doesn’t make it any less real.

‘If he knew who the man in blue was …’ she said, softly.

‘He might just have had the time to move him. To move him and grab whatever else was in the floor.’

I looked at John. He seemed energized now, his thoughts keeping pace with Cordelia’s.

‘He looked startled,’ said Cordelia, glancing at me. ‘Think about it. When you told him what we’d seen there was a look on his face and then he went straight back out the door …’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘He could have moved the man we saw. Could have grabbed whatever he had hidden. That might be what caused the accident. He might have been so shaken up …’

‘He might have lost control of the car.’

‘Or he might have been to see whoever shared his secret,’ finished Cordelia. She and John looked at one another, half-smiling, faces flushed. I felt like the outsider. Felt like a silly woman in an apron with the smell of potatoes and gravy on my hands.

‘Fairfax were as good a man as I’ve known,’ I said, refusing to believe it.

‘This doesn’t mean he weren’t. We don’t know anything,’ said Cordelia. ‘But we have to ask questions. This place,’ she muttered, frustrated, ‘it’s got something in the earth. It’s seen so much blood and misery. People do things they might not want to. We’re not all wicked. Sometimes it’s just circumstances.’

They looked at me as if I were both their mams; as if they needed me to acknowledge what was being said before we could move forward.