The note was where she’d left it, crumpled in the back of her drawer. She smoothed it out as she returned to the room where both men sat waiting.

‘Here it is,’ she said, handing it over.

Taking it by one corner, Fanshawe read it aloud. ‘we need to meat ring me.’

He slid the note into an envelope that Carstairs held out for him, then looked at her. ‘He went to the trouble of finding out where you live, then hung around hoping to speak to you. And you’ve no idea why? Are you sure you’re telling us everything, Mrs Chatwell?’

‘Yes.’ The word caught in her throat.

‘Yes?’ Fanshawe’s eyes bored into her. ‘You don’t sound so sure. Was the temptation too much to resist, Mrs Chatwell? Did you have a sexual relationship with this man, thinking you’d never see him again, that your husband would never find out. You didn’t tell him where you lived, you thought you were safe but then he turns up on your doorstep and you had to get rid of him.’

Molly looked at him, appalled. This couldn’t be happening. This kind of thing didn’t happen to women like her… but then again, exactly what kind of woman was she? She used to be so sure.

She ran a hand through her hair. ‘No, I swear. Nothing happened. I admit, I thought he was attracted to me, that he was reaching for me.’ She gave a short embarrassed laugh. ‘He must have been afraid I’d fall in; we were standing very close to the edge and the lock chamber is very deep.’

‘Looking out for you, was he?’ Carstairs said with heavy sarcasm.

She ignored him and looked back to Fanshawe. ‘He was being nice, I suppose, and as I said, we were standing very close to the edge. He seemed to know about canals and locks, he mentioned that there wasn’t a ladder so if you fell in, there was no way out. Perhaps, that’s why he was being careful.’ Molly shrugged as if it hadn’t mattered, as if she hadn’t been cut to the bone. ‘I misunderstood, that was all.’

If she’d hoped that Jack would stay asleep until they were gone, the creak of floorboards over their heads indicated she was out of luck. She closed her eyes tightly.

‘Your husband?’ Fanshawe asked. When she nodded, he looked down at his notebook again. ‘You said in your text he knew about your liaison. Is that true?’

Wanting to scream with frustration, she waited a few seconds before answering. ‘It wasn’t a liaison and no, he doesn’t know. I said that in case that man was going to try to blackmail me.’

‘Blackmail,’ the inspector said sharply. ‘You insist nothing happened and yet you considered that this might be an attempt to blackmail you?’