‘It’ll pick up soon. It’s got to.’

‘Yes, I keep on saying that as well. But architecture is a reputation game and all the rumours – well, there’s nothing we can do about the rumours. We just have to keep on trying to turn our luck round, but it’s hard to motivate my husband these days. Getting him enthusiastic for another open competition – I’ll admit, that really takes it out of me.’

‘I think I get why you’ve come down here now.’ He gazed at the pavilion, where the man was straddling the apex of the roof frame with the poise of a stilt-walker. ‘I knew it was too much of a coincidence. First, I get a house call from the coppers and now you. Well, I’ve not heard from her, all right? I thought she might just let the phone ring twice or something on my birthday. But I haven’t heard a whisper.’

‘Yes, I thought as much,’ she said. ‘You would’ve told me otherwise. I would’ve seen it in your face.’ His eyes were on her now, in that old way she used to catch them dwelling. ‘The police were here?’

‘Just Applegarth. He said it was a routine call, but I don’t know. He gave me the impression he was after something else. You know the way he is – he’s always scratching at the subject, hoping you get sore.’

She’d not seen DS Applegarth since May and she was never comfortable when he came over to the house. There was an unerring calmness to him, how he strolled about the parlour with his hands behind his back, examining her mother’s trinkets and flipping through their stack of records. He was CID, which seemed to give him licence to arrive at any moment of the day or night, asking to be let inside with such effete politeness, lifting his hat and asking, every time, if he could trouble her please with a few more questions, won’t take long. But his visits always lasted more than half an hour. The first occasion he’d appeared – alone – was last October, when he’d got them to review the details in their written statements to the Chief Inspector, dating back about two years, as though expecting them to falter and reveal a contradiction. Arthur had grown weary of it, telling him, ‘We’ve been through this a hundred times with, whats-his-name, Fitzsimmons. Where is he? Ask him.’ But the explanation had come back: ‘The Chief Inspector is a very busy fellow. He’s devolved the running of this case to me. As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t shut down our investigation yet – so let me ask you that again, sir, if it’s not an imposition. When was the last time either of you saw Miss Savigear?’ Early on in May, he’d questioned them inside the draughting room, asking to see all the work that Joyce had done while she’d been with them, and he’d even sat down in her chair a moment, searched the drawers and meddled with her instruments. He’d rummaged through the files on Arthur’s bureau and disturbed the survey drawings she’d been working on. They couldn’t tell if he’d been looking for some object in particular, and he wouldn’t satisfy them with an answer. Still, she sensed there was a hidden method to his visits – he couldn’t charge them with a crime, but he could keep them under observation and disrupt their peace occasionally, if peace was what it was. And something Arthur said had rattled her: ‘If this is how he acts with us, imagine how he’ll be with Joyce when they catch up with her.’