For the first time, she learned the dead man’s name: Frederick Embleton. He’d been seventy-two, a retired plumber, and his wife was in the courtroom with a grown-up daughter on either side of her. The old lady was dry-eyed, as upright as a pea-stick, and the daughters were hunched and weeping; Vee could hear their occasional shuddering breaths under the voice of Sergeant Bayliss, who was reading out her own statement in a steady monotone.

‘“I heard a shout and I looked over and saw the lorry turn left out of the side road opposite but instead of going into the nearest lane, it went right across the road and then turned, so it was going the wrong way, against the traffic. A taxi was coming straight towards it. The lorry braked and then seemed to skid. It went off diagonally and pinned the gentleman between the front bumper and the bus stop.”’

One of the daughters gave a sob, and Vee looked away, trying to dispel the awful image of Mr Embleton’s last moments. The courtroom was nearly empty: a single reporter in the back row, and a stenographer working at a desk to one side. The two Americans were sitting as far away from Embleton’s family as they possibly could, the driver of the lorry looking down at his enormous boots, and the officer staring directly at Vee. She felt another jolt of nerves.

The coroner was making a series of notes; for a minute or two there was no noise except the soft scrape of his pen, and then he looked up at Vee. She knew the type: a homely potato-face and a gaze like a paring-knife.

‘So, Mrs Overs, would you say you had a clear view of the accident?’

‘Yes, quite clear.’

‘Could you speak up a little, so that our stenographer can hear?’

‘Sorry. Yes, it was clear.’

‘And how near to the deceased were you?’

‘I was next to him.’

‘Could I remind you to speak up, Mrs Overs?’

‘Yes, sorry. I was right next to him – I was talking to him just before it happened. If I hadn’t stepped away, I would have been hit myself.’

‘And are you certain of the sequence of events in your statement: first the lorry made the complete turn into the wrong lane, then it braked, and then it skidded?’

Was she certain? She’d related the memory so many times that it now had all the lustre and detail of a scene in a film, whereas at the time it had simply been a sliding blur.

‘I think so,’ she said, suddenly less confident.

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’

He made another note. ‘And Sergeant Bayliss, can you assure me that efforts were made to find the taxi driver in question?’

‘Yes, Your Honour. We made enquiries at all the West End ranks, and left a wall poster appealing for information at the nearest cabmen’s shelters, but no one came forward.’

‘It’s a great pity. A crowded street, and we have only a single witness. Quite an indictment of public spirit, I’d say.’