‘He’s an ex-partner. A violent one. Stratton recognized Joanne and told him she was here.’

‘God, that’s terrible.’

‘I didn’t come here to talk about that,’ he began. ‘Josh told me they’ve rearrested Finn. D’you know why?’

‘They think he killed Ailsa,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘But why? Why would they think that?’ Greg said, now seated alongside her.

‘They won’t tell me. Just said they had forensic evidence from the body.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘What do I do? I can’t tell them . . .’ She stuttered to a halt, a frightened look on her face.

‘Tell them what?’ he urged.

She was staring at him as though reading his mind. ‘Joanne’s pregnant, isn’t she?’

‘How did you—’ He stopped himself before finishing the sentence.

She nodded as though to herself. ‘I suspected as much. There was something about her when she came with me that night. When the guy turned up at the shop, I suspected he might be her partner. That’s why I sent him there, so he would take her away from here. From you. Even if I’d known he was violent, I suspect I would still have told him where she was. I hated – no, hate her, you see. Just as I hated Ailsa for taking you from me.’

Greg tried to process all of this, mixed up as it was with the sentence she couldn’t finish.

‘What can’t you tell the police?’ he said.

She looked at him as if he were a child, then shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said wearily.

‘What doesn’t matter?’ he demanded.

‘Everything.’ She rose to go. ‘Josh’s wee sister’s over there.’ She pointed in the grave’s direction. ‘At least she has a headstone. Ailsa will get one too now, I expect.’

‘If there’s something you haven’t told the police – about me – about anything—’ he called to her retreating figure, but she didn’t stop and she didn’t answer.

He sat there for a long time, trying to work through what Caroline had just said and what it might mean. Did she know something about that night that put Finn in the frame for Ailsa’s murder? Was that the reason Finn had been so angry about the uncovering of the grave?

Or did she remember something about him? Something he’d blotted from his memory about that night? About the last time he’d seen Ailsa?

He tried to think and, the more he did that, the more convinced he became that Caroline was still covering for him in some way.

After Ailsa disappeared, he’d lost his wits. Drunk himself stupid. He’d been out of it for weeks. Then Caroline had the miscarriage, after which he’d run away again, gone south. Was there something that had happened during that time that he wasn’t allowing himself to remember?