‘She was upset,’ the detective said. Another almost-question interrupting the memory.

‘Of course she was upset.’ Polly knew she was being waspish. ‘She’d carried the baby through the difficult, dangerous time. She’d allowed herself to believe that everything would be fine. She’d had a scan and knew that it would be a girl, and had started designing a fancy nursery. She was enjoying being pregnant. Then suddenly, without any warning, there was no child. At least there was a child, but it was dead.’

‘So no wonder she fantasized about seeing little girls disappearing into the sea.’

‘No!’ Polly was becoming outraged on her friend’s behalf. She paused for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, what’s your name?’

The woman seemed unfazed. ‘Reeves. Chief Inspector Willow Reeves.’

‘Then let me explain, Chief Inspector Reeves. Eleanor was depressed after the miscarriages, but she wasn’t psychotic. She wasn’t seeing strange images or hearing voices. There was a girl on the beach. She didn’t disappear into the sea, but she was dancing on the beach. I saw her at the party in the last of the light, just as Eleanor had described her. And again this afternoon, playing on the sand. So she was no figment of Eleanor’s imagination.’

There was a silence. Motes of dust floated in a shaft of sunlight. In the corner Inspector Perez was writing notes. After her outburst the room seemed very peaceful. Polly fought back the desire to apologize for overreacting.

‘Last night,’ Willow said, ‘did you leave the house for any reason?’

Polly shook her head.

‘You were the last person to see her alive, and she was still sitting outside?’

‘Yes.’ Polly looked at him and wondered if she should mention the figure she’d seen in the mist on the tideline. But then the detectives might think she was psychotic too. ‘I expected Eleanor to follow me into the house.’

‘But you didn’t hear her? You don’t know if that happened?’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘I didn’t hear anything until I woke up the next morning.’ She paused because she was embarrassed by the admission. ‘I don’t sleep well. Occasionally I take sleeping tablets.’

‘And Mr Wentworth?’ Willow seemed to be staring out of the window. ‘Was he still there when you woke up?’

‘Of course he was! He went to bed with me.’

‘In the same bed?’

‘No, there were two singles. One room was a double and the other a twin. We tossed a coin for the double, and the Longstaffs won.’ Polly thought that seemed like an eternity ago. Their arrival at Sletts, bursting into the house and checking out the space. Laughing as they fought over who would get the double bed.

‘So he might have left the room without you hearing. To get a glass of water perhaps, or to see the sun coming up.’ The detective gave a gentle smile, the sort Polly might have given to encourage a timid reader to ask more detailed questions about the background to a story.