She stood, one hand on the door, the other on the frame, her white silky robe with its batwing sleeves making her look like an avenging angel. ‘Not my children,’ she said, her voice husky with emotion.

The men were tall, maybe six foot, and broad so that they filled the space in front of the door. The older of the two, took a half-step forward. ‘My name is Detective Inspector Fanshawe, and this is Detective Sergeant Carstairs. May we come in?’

Their faces gave nothing away. Molly dropped her hands and stood uncertainly before standing back and waving them inside.

She indicated the door to the study. ‘Please go in. I’ll go and get my husband.’

DI Fanshawe held a hand up to stop her. ‘It might be best if we speak to you first, Mrs Chatwell.’

She looked at him, feeling the ground move unsteadily under her feet. ‘If it’s to do with Freya or Remi, shouldn’t he be here?’

‘They’re your children?’ Fanshawe asked, waiting until Molly whispered a strangled yes before continuing. ‘We’re not here about them.’

She clasped her hands to her chest in relief, then frowned. It had to be something serious to bring two policemen to her front door at such an early hour, but if it wasn’t about the children, what was it about? ‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked. ‘I certainly need some to wake myself up.’

When the men nodded and gave their preferences, she went into the kitchen to fill the kettle, her mind spinning as she waited for it to boil. What would they want with her? Her. Not Jack.

She made coffee, added sugar to one, milk to all three and, gathering them awkwardly, headed back to the study where the two men were still standing.

‘Please, sit down,’ she said, putting the coffees on one of the two desks that were still scattered with the remnants of Freya and Remi’s studies. She waited until the men sat before handing them their coffee and sitting onto the small bucket chair in the corner. The coffee was hot, but she drank it anyway, hoping the caffeine would race to her brain to make it start functioning, maybe even give her some clarity.

She looked at the two men as she sipped. They were fairly handsome despite their ill-fitting suits and cheap shirts. The detective inspector was, she guessed, about her age, the sergeant a few years younger. Each had hard eyes and grim mouths but there was a fan of wrinkles around the older man’s eyes; when he wasn’t working it looked as though he smiled a lot. The younger man’s face was just grim.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked, cupping her hands around her mug and wishing she’d insisted Jack be called.