The house in Prestonfield Road where Angela Fernycroft had lived so happily then died so brutally had soaked sadness into its bricks and mortar. The crime scene had long since been cleared of the paraphernalia of investigation and the detritus of death, but Angela’s family had declined to move back in. The house would have to sit unoccupied for a couple of years before public memory was erased. It wasn’t going to sell until then. Angela’s husband, Cal, had agreed to meet Connie there and let her in.

‘Anything,’ he’d told her on the phone. ‘If it’ll help, you know …’

‘Catch him,’ were the words he hadn’t been able to say.

She introduced herself and the two of them sat at opposite sides of the kitchen table. Cal Fernycroft wept a while before he could speak. Connie said nothing. When he’d been crying for some minutes, she slid her hand across the table, palm up, to see if he was ready to reach out and be comforted. At first he just looked at the hand, then he took it gently and began to cry harder.

Connie studied the kitchen. Someone had been growing pots of herbs on the windowsill. Connie guessed that was Angela’s handiwork and felt a rush of affection for her. People who liked growing things cared for their environment. Tending a plant required commitment and love. Connie was no good at it.

Next to the back door, a photo of the family was mounted on the wall. In it, each parent had a child on their back, and the four of them were grinning into the camera as if they’d all just been told the funniest joke.

‘Last year,’ Cal Fernycroft croaked. ‘On holiday in Wales. We’d just raced along the beach. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard.’

Connie relaxed her hand and pulled it gently away. Cal was done crying.

‘Do you have photo albums? I’d like to get to know Angela better and sometimes that helps.’

‘They’re in the roof,’ he said.

‘Are you able to get them? If it’s a problem then just say.’

‘No, no, I can do that,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I haven’t been upstairs …’

‘I’ll have the police fetch them. You don’t even have to stay while I’m looking around. I can get the key back to you later.’

He frowned. ‘No. That’s not … I should be able to be in my own house. I need to feel close to her again. Before, I could feel her in the house. If I came in unexpectedly from work, I could tell just by walking through the door that she was here. I didn’t think about it until she was gone, that she was on my mind every second. Like a magnet that guided me home. Could you help me?’