‘McCromarty was underneath it,’ said Noel.

‘Oh, so you know the whole story, do you?’ said the man. ‘Then you carry on and finish it, sonny.’

‘Sorry, it was just a fictive prediction,’ said Noel, stiffly.

‘He doesn’t mean it,’ said Vee, as if apologizing for the village idiot. Noel opened his book again.

‘So go on,’ said Vee. ‘I’m on the edge of my seat. Why’s it come to court?’

‘Well, that’s the nub, isn’t it?’ he said, slightly mollified. ‘They didn’t find no definite bits of him so they can’t prove he’s dead. And if they can’t prove it, then his wife’s not a widow and she can’t get the insurance, or the pension, so what they do is weigh up all the evidence, such as who saw him last – which was me – and where he was headed, which was Fairleigh Crescent. It’s called the balance of probabilities. Of course, there’s another side to it – they want to stop people skipping off.’

‘Skipping off?’ repeated Vee.

‘Hearing a bomb and taking the opportunity of doing a flit. Say McCromarty didn’t get on with his old lady, and had a young lady somewhere else, or say he owed money, or he done something he shouldn’t have and the police was after him – he might think, This is my chance. If I disappear now, everyone will think I’ve copped it. And then he might call himself another name and start again in another town. There’s all sorts of fiddles they have to look out for.’

Vee didn’t trust her own voice; instead she cranked her features into a facsimile of innocent interest. Beside her, Noel seemed to have turned to stone.

In the momentary silence, they all heard the noise of fast and heavy footsteps approaching, and a blare of overlapping voices.

‘—and he said he couldn’t do that because he did not have a snow shovel, and I said—’

‘Is it that door, or is it the one on the left?’

‘—that cannot be called snow, that is powdered sugar, and what you need, sir, is a spoon.’

‘Americans,’ muttered Noel, as the door opened.

A huge figure in a great-coat entered first, head almost scraping the lintel, felt cap rammed on dark hair, big features in a flushed face, and he was followed, like a perfect punchline, by a short, neat, colourless man in officer’s uniform.

‘Wrong door,’ said the second. He disappeared again, and the first raised his hand apologetically and said, ‘Please excuse us for the disturbance!’ at the sort of volume that you might expect from someone hailing a taxi during a violent rainstorm, and as he turned to go again, Vee realized, with absolute certainty, that he was the man she’d seen through the windscreen of the lorry. The door closed.

She swayed slightly, as if caught by a gust of wind, and she felt Noel put a hand on her forearm. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said.

It was another forty minutes before Vee was called into court, though it felt like a week, and by that time, her mouth was so dry that when she confirmed in front of the coroner that her name was Margery Olive Overs (so help her God), every word was accompanied by little creaks and snaps, as if her lips were made of leather.