Later, on her way into the grand entrance hall of Springfield House, Willow bumped into Perez. ‘How did you get on with the Malcolmsons?’

‘It was interesting . . .’ He paused, shot a glance behind him and only then did she see Ian Longstaff waiting for them in the shadows of the hall. ‘But I’ll explain later.’

They sat in the yellow room with its flashes of sunshine. Willow asked Perez to lead the interview; he’d already formed a relationship with the man and she could tell that Longstaff viewed her with distrust. Most of the women he knew worked in the media and were fashionable, well groomed and neurotic. They didn’t have unmanageable hair or charity-shop clothes. She settled carefully on a low spindly chair out of his line of view.

‘I understand that this must be difficult for you,’ Perez said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You understand nothing!’ Longstaff leaned forward. ‘I loved Eleanor from the moment I saw her. I might as well be dead myself.’

There was a silence. Willow became aware of sounds outside the room. Curlews on the hill. The inevitable sheep. Inside, the tension became so uncomfortable that she wondered if she should intervene. Perez was an intensely private man and wouldn’t explain that the love of his life had been murdered too. She couldn’t do that, but she might ask a harmless question while Perez recovered his composure. In the end she waited. It wasn’t her place to interfere.

‘Of course,’ Perez said at last, ‘it’s the guilt that’s the hardest thing. The idea that you might have done something different. The rerunning of various scenarios in your head.’

Another silence before Longstaff nodded. ‘I should have gone outside to fetch her in, that night after the party. I should have protected her.’

‘Did she need protecting? Were you aware that she might be in danger? She worked in the media, and high-profile people can attract unwanted notice.’ Perez’s voice was so low that Willow had to listen carefully to make out the words. ‘You’re a sound engineer and you work in the same business. You’ll understand that.’

‘You think she had a stalker?’ Longstaff looked up at him sharply. ‘No, there was nothing of that sort. She never appeared on television herself. And she would have told me if she was getting any hassle.’

‘This project she was working on – the project that seemed to trigger the . . .’ Perez hesitated and seemed to be searching for the right word, ‘disagreement between you, when you were drinking with your friends after the wedding party. Can you tell me a little about that? Were you working on it too, on the sound?’

‘There wouldn’t have been a role for me yet,’ Longstaff said. ‘The show was still in pre-production. Eleanor had decided on a scriptwriter, but she wasn’t sure exactly what form the broadcast should take yet. She was researching stories. Intelligent, rational people who were convinced they’d seen a ghost. She said she didn’t want an hour full of weirdos and loonies.’