Willow wondered if it would be patronizing to tell him that he’d done very well and resisted the impulse. ‘And you, Jimmy? Did you get anything new from Lowrie’s mother and father?’

There was a moment’s pause. ‘Lowrie was in love with our victim when he was a student. A grand passion, apparently. He came home one holiday threatening to leave university, and his parents even worried that he might kill himself.’

‘A young man being melodramatic, do you think? Or is it still significant after all this time?’ Willow thought she must have been a cold and heartless girl herself, for she couldn’t remember having lost sleep over a man. There were men she’d fancied and had enjoyed being with, but after a few months she’d grown impatient with them all, had made an excuse and moved on.

Perez shrugged. ‘Maybe it says more about Eleanor. Perhaps she enjoyed provoking that sort of reaction.’

‘So if she was having an affair,’ Willow said, ‘it had less to do with needing comfort after the miscarriage than with putting some excitement and danger into her life.’

‘Perhaps.’ He considered the idea. ‘Or needing to be loved. When I’ve spoken to her family and her friends in London I might have more idea what was going on.’ He paused. ‘Do you think it might be worth trying to trace this child that Eleanor saw on the beach the afternoon she died, and that Polly saw at the party?’

‘Are you believing in ghosts now too, Jimmy?’ Willow kept her voice light. She hoped he wasn’t going all flaky on her.

‘I wondered if she might be a possible witness,’ he replied. ‘If Eleanor wandered out to look for her.’

‘Good point.’ She nodded towards Sandy. ‘Will you look into that while Jimmy’s on his jaunt to the south? See if you can track down Peerie Lizzie for us.’

She’d meant it as a joke, but she noticed that Jimmy didn’t laugh.

Chapter Fourteen

Polly had never dealt well with stress. Sometimes she felt fragile, like one of her mother’s favourite porcelain vases, as if it would only take a loud noise or an unintentional jolt for her to crack, or to topple and smash into pieces. She’d never been to see a doctor about her anxiety and had rather admired Eleanor for having submitted to treatment, even for a short while. There seemed such a stigma to a psychiatric hospital, even the private places full of celebrities struggling with addiction.

The worst time had been straight after she’d graduated. An inner-city public library where youths had gathered round the computers as if they were in an amusement arcade full of gaming machines. Where the reading-group members had demanded edgy contemporary fiction instead of the classics that Polly offered them. Her boss had been a loud woman who despised weakness and pretension and accused Polly of both. She’d had grey teeth and body odour and they’d disliked each other immediately.

It was Eleanor who’d seen the advertisement for the Sentiman job in the Guardian. You like all this strange stuff, Poll. Why don’t you go for it? Another reason to be grateful to her.