‘I know who you are and what you’re doing.’

‘How?’ Harri asked.

‘Mr Elmys told me. He said you’d come prying.’ There was a bitter chill in Cynthia’s words.

‘You’re still in contact with him?’

‘I look after young Elliot every now and again. I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

‘Not even if it protects Elliot?’ Harri was gratified to see a crack in the ice, but it quickly frosted over.

‘Protects him from what?’ Cynthia asked. ‘People were always talking scandal and nonsense about Ben and David and Beth. You always look to the worst, don’t you? Why can’t you ever think the best?’

‘I just want to find the truth,’ Harri replied.

‘Who do you think you are?’ Cynthia countered. ‘Mr Elmys says you’re not even a police officer any more.’

Why had Ben been talking about her to the Ashas’ housekeeper?

‘I’m a private investigator,’ Harri lied. In truth, she wasn’t really sure what she was.

‘Then I don’t have to talk to you.’

Harri knew from experience that most people were too polite to shut the door in someone’s face, and if anyone had offered her odds on Cynthia Hughes being too well mannered to leave her on the doorstep, Harri would have gambled her meagre police pension. And she would have lost it. Cynthia fixed her with an unflinching stare and closed the door on her.

Harri rapped her knuckles against it. ‘Mrs Hughes?’

‘Go away.’

Harri hesitated. Mrs Hughes was right; she didn’t have the authority to question anyone any more. Feeling impotent, Harri went back to her car. This time she kept her eyes firmly away from the headstones. She didn’t want inspiration and forgot her dreams of becoming a better person, shunning Anna Cecilia’s tale of suffering. She’d never measure up to the saintly woman, so there was no point.

Harri’s self-pity deepened when she neared her car and saw a piece of paper fluttering on the windscreen. Was it another message from Ben? Why was he doing this to her? She lifted the wiper blade and unfolded a note in the same typescript.

I long to return to that so real place

Where you took your hand in mine

Your fingers traced along my arm

Drawing maps of worlds to come

We walked the wisps of emerald green

By our forever elsewhere house

A new-laid path stretched on ahead

Diamond stars shone with high promise

I long to return to that so real place

Where you took your hand in mine

But your hand is gone, rolled over, rolled on

The stars are ill aligned

Our elsewhere house lies empty and still

What was is now no more

But when the high gems shimmer and the shutters fall

I still feel those worlds tenderly traced

The style was coarse, but it was heartfelt. Whatever its redeeming emotional qualities, it was wrong. Why was he leaving her notes? Why didn’t he just talk to her? How had he known she was here? And how had he managed to get the poem onto her car without her noticing, when she was standing no more than fifty metres away? She looked around, but the village was as deserted as when she’d arrived, just the sound of birds and the gentle brush of leaves. Was Ben asking for her forgiveness? Was he trying to woo her? Did he still love her? It had taken Harri months to get over him, and fate had brought them back together at a time when she was vulnerable. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough for these games.