‘It’s Mum you should apologise to,’ she says.

‘Too late for that.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She won’t forgive me.’

‘That’s not the point.’

He can’t meet her eye. ‘I should never have asked you to come home. I should have kept you out of all this.’

‘I’m glad I know,’ she says.

‘Are you?’

She leans across the table towards him. ‘I don’t want to be like you.’

‘Isla.’ He reaches for her hand and she pulls back.

‘I want to live as far from you as I can. I want to be as different from you as I can be. I’ll do it if it kills me.’

He sits back in his chair. The radio plays a jingle, an ad for shampoo. Isla lets the moment stretch out. She has a weightless feeling, of shock and relief. She daren’t speak in case she takes it back.

‘That’s probably for the best,’ he says.

She stands, goes to the tap and drinks a glass of water. It’s raining in gusts outside.

‘What time’s your flight?’

‘Not till five.’ She can’t see his face. ‘Scott’s taking me for lunch first.’

‘I’ll head off to work in a minute.’ He is formal, abrupt. ‘Make sure you lock up behind you.’

She stays where she is, next to the radio and the clean plates in the drying rack. There is a loud knock at the door, an unfriendly rap. Neither of them moves.

‘Is that your brother?’

‘It can’t be. Too early.’

He walks from the room without fully standing up, his shoulders stooped. She hears him talking to a woman on the doorstep, asking her inside. Isla turns the radio off and listens. She thinks she knows the woman’s voice.

‘This is Sergeant Dent,’ Joe says, returning to the room.

Sergeant Dent nods at Isla, a little sheepish. ‘We met.’

‘Tea? Coffee?’ Isla pulls out a chair. ‘Will you sit down?’

She sits. ‘Coffee. Thanks.’ She smooths her hair, which is damp from the rain. ‘I have some news,’ she says.

Isla fusses with the percolator as the cop sits down. She thinks of the dark London flat, all those weeks ago; her dad’s voice on the phone, talking about a woman he used to know. Across the room, Joe asks Sergeant Dent to continue.

‘Steve Mallory gave himself up,’ the cop says. ‘He came into the station and confessed to killing his wife.’

Isla turns to fill the kettle, gives herself a moment with her back to them both. She has the ache of an old wound. It makes no sense to be floored by it now, when she’s known for so long that Mandy is dead. She hears her dad exhale, and when she turns around she sees her own shock in his face.

‘When did he confess?’ Isla says.

‘Early last week. Not long after your visit to his workplace. He was—’

‘How did Mandy die?’ She doesn’t mean to interrupt, to snap. ‘Sorry. Could you tell us what he told you?’