‘Once.’ She sighs. ‘He was standing in the churchyard and he looked as if his heart had been broken. I didn’t talk to him. You can tell, can’t you, when someone doesn’t want to talk? Of course, after he was gone, I wished I had. But I left him alone that day, thinking he and Hollie must have had a big bust-up. I remember thinking it was odd that he was staring at the graves.’ Her forehead wrinkles into a frown. ‘Then, just a week later, they were digging his.’ Ida’s eyes fill with tears. ‘After seeing him so full of life, it was tragic. I suppose the village did close ranks, as you put it. I think they were protecting the memory of that beautiful couple rather than anything else. And you know what Doctor Buckley’s like.’

Rather than respond, I let her go on talking.

‘I’ve never understood that household. Elise is a smart woman. She knows what he’s up to and she seems to turn a blind eye. I know it’s what women used to do, back in my day, but not now, Detective Sergeant. Modern women don’t have to let men treat them so shabbily.’

‘I know what you mean.’ My eyes meet hers. ‘It might seem unbelievable, but it does happen. I know that for a fact.’ As she looks at me, taking in what I’m telling her without saying the words outright, she’s silent for a moment.

‘Did you know Hollie’s mother well?’

‘Quite well. I met her years ago, when she first moved here with James. Never really grew up, that one. Beautiful, free-spirited girl, she was. No wonder James fell in love with her.’

‘They were happy together?’

‘Yes.’ She hesitates. ‘You have to understand, Kathryn was driven. James, bless him, never was.’

Her words surprise me. ‘He wrote a book and got it published. That hardly happens easily.’

She gives me a knowing look. ‘That’s right. But his agent was a friend of Kathryn’s. That’s how he got his first break. After that, when Kathryn died, it didn’t go so well for him.’

I hadn’t realised. ‘When you say she was driven …’ I hesitate for a moment. ‘Did that cause problems between them?’

‘Oh, I’ll say. It was terrible for a while and I’m not sure there wasn’t someone else on the scene. But they got over it. It was before Hollie, and after she was born, they seemed to sort themselves out.’

I pause. ‘Kathryn killed herself, didn’t she?’