‘He turned up here one night,’ Bethany told the room. ‘This was a week ago or so now, but you were out. Jenkins said he wanted to get to the truth about what happened to that girl and wouldn’t stop until he got it. I told him to go away, but he was very insistent and intimidating, and I was afraid.’ Bethany reached for Jez’s hand, but he moved it down to his side. ‘The last thing I wanted to do was worry you, Jez, but I’m afraid I panicked and phoned Daddy. I didn’t know what else to do.’ She appealed to Sasha. ‘Daddy’s been in business for a long time and it just so happens that he and this Jenkins had business acquaintances in common.’

Sasha knew that Bethany’s father had been convicted for various offences as a young man and had unsavoury connections in the murky hinterland where business meets crime.

‘Daddy reached out to him and suggested we… give Davey Jenkins money to make him go away. Mr Jenkins was happy to take our money, and I was happy to give it, to ensure that he left us alone.’

‘I thought you were at home on Tuesday?’ Jez said.

‘I slipped out to give him the money at a restaurant in Westcliff while you were playing cards with your friends.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Abs. ‘Why didn’t you say anything to the cops? If you told them Davey Jenkins came here and threatened you, he may not have come after me, and Deano may still be alive.’

Bethany rested an elbow on the mantelpiece. Above her hung a large portrait photo of her and Jez on their wedding day. Sasha was fascinated by the photo, in which the happy couple faced each other holding hands in front of a gnarled old oak tree. Jez was in his tailcoat and Bethany wore the biggest, puffiest wedding dress Sasha had ever seen; she looked like an enormous marshmallow. The train snaked around the trunk of the tree and into the distance. Sasha had no idea how Bethany had managed to get the dress to fit into the limo, or more likely the pony and trap, to the church.

‘Davey Jenkins has an alibi for the night of Andrew Dean’s death,’ she said, peeling her eyes away from the portrait. ‘Mrs Weston met him at the restaurant barely half an hour before his death. That’s not to say that he’s not involved in Dean’s death, he’s still a person of interest to us, but we don’t have any evidence at this stage to suggest he’s responsible.’

‘I knew nothing about this, I swear,’ Jez told Abs. ‘And if I did, I would have put a stop to it and made sure it was reported to the police straight away.’

‘That Welsh thug kidnapped me,’ said Abs, blinking in disbelief. ‘He was going to murder me.’