‘Vee,’ said Captain Van Steen, clearly and firmly.

The world seemed to stop, but momentum flung her onwards so that she lurched towards the front of the witness box and stuck out a hand. It clapped against the wood with a hollow boom.

‘It’s Mrs Overs,’ she said, her voice a startled gabble. ‘Mrs Margery Olive Overs.’

Van Steen’s head was cocked, his expression that of someone who’d just heard a dog miaowing. Out of the corner of her eye, Vee could see the coroner lean forward.

‘Are you feeling unwell, Mrs Overs?’

Unwell? She felt as if she were just about to drop dead. She looked from one man to the other. What was going on? Was it a trap of some kind? How did the American know her real name? Was she about to be arrested for impersonation?

‘I’m all right,’ she said from a mouth full of sand.

‘You were telling us,’ continued Captain Van Steen, ‘that you saw a vehicle.’

Vee-hicle.

He pronounced the word with the emphasis all on the first syllable.

VEE-hicle.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, thought Vee, revelation dawning. She heard herself make a noise like the starting wheeze of a set of bagpipes, half relief, half hysterical laughter at the absurdity of her mistake, and she brought up a hand to her lips to choke it off.

‘Mrs Overs, do you need a glass of water, or a brief adjournment?’ asked the coroner. ‘I do hope not,’ he added, pointedly. Vee shook her head, though the courtroom seemed to be gently rotating, with the Embletons and the Americans bobbing up and down, as if on a merry-go-round.

‘It was a lorry,’ she said, between her fingers. ‘A … a … wagon.’

‘Could I remind you to speak clearly, Mrs Overs.’

‘Do you mean a truck?’ asked the captain.

‘Yes, an army truck. And it turned and skidded.’

The captain seemed to stiffen.

‘It turned. And it skidded.’ He repeated the words slowly, as if they had tremendous significance.

‘Yes, and it braked. It braked as well as skidded, it did both, I saw it do both.’ Words seemed to be spraying out of her mouth, almost at random.

‘And before it skidded, had the truck completed the turn, or was it still in the process of turning?’

‘Captain Van Steen, we have already been through this sequence of events,’ said the coroner.

The American ducked his head, deferentially. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I believe this sequence is the crux of the matter, it being the only point on which the driver and the witness differ. And if the witness is not entirely certain about it, and I submit that it appears to be the case that she is not entirely certain, then I’m sure you’ll understand the need to go through it one more time.’

‘Oh, very well, then. Mrs Overs, could I ask you to concentrate extremely hard on what Captain Van Steen is about to ask you?’

She nodded, aware that the eyes of everyone in the court were fixed upon her. Even the lorry driver was looking up now. He had the wide, loose, black-eyed face of a mastiff.