“Karen,” said Eleanor Mallon, turning businesslike once we’d gone back and forth about the weather a couple of times (noticeably chillier!), “I wanted to let you know I followed up on some of what we talked about the other day. I made inquiries about Bestlife, and Gorsebrook Residential, as we discussed.”

“Actually,” I told her, “we’re just leaving Gorsebrook. Kelli spent the afternoon here.”

“Oh! And how did she like it?”

“She loved it,” I told Eleanor, girding myself to have my good mood quashed. Please, I begged silently, let there be no lawsuits, disapproving health inspectors, media exposés on ponytailed Ian’s secret, pervy history of interfering with —

“I’m so glad!” said Eleanor. “I wanted to assure you I’ve heard nothing but good things. I really think the incident with Jeremy was a blip.”

“I heard he was actually fine the entire time,” I said, fizzing with relief. “He was with a family member, it just wasn’t logged.”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “That’s what I heard too.”

“But thanks so much for looking into it.”

“About Bestlife,” she said, and paused. “I think you could do better.”

Given Eleanor Mallon’s consistently upbeat demeanour since I’d known her, these six words struck me as positively damning.

“Many people I spoke to in the home care industry,” she continued, “didn’t approve of the practice of pairing male workers with female clients. It’s funny, considering the opposite situation is so commonplace . . .”

“Women taking care of men?”

“Yes. Just goes to show . . .” Eleanor trailed off. What did it go to show? That women taking care of men was the natural order of things. Whereas the opposite bordered on perversion.

“However, Bestlife has a lot of staff turnover,” continued Eleanor. “Which is a bad sign in itself, I think.”

“So you’re saying Trevor ended up being assigned to Kelli because they didn’t have enough female workers?”

“That’s right,” said Eleanor. “And that’s not normally done. Even your mother had some concerns on that front.”

I had placed Eleanor on speakerphone and put the key in the ignition, figuring we could talk as I drove home, but now I stopped, took her off speakerphone again and held the phone up to my ear. It wasn’t so much that it mattered if Kelli heard any of the conversation. It was just that I did not want to be distracted, I did not want to miss one word of what Eleanor Mallon said next.

“My mother had concerns? About Trevor? Where did you hear this from?”

“I know a couple of —”

“Did you talk to Margot?” I asked. I scoured my memory for Margot’s last name. “Margot in admin? Because she told me —”

“I didn’t speak to Margot, no, but I do know some people who’ve worked there, and they were nice enough to speak candidly with me.”

Oh, Miz Petrie. Your mother never gave us any trouble at all. I was going to kill Margot, I decided.

“What were my mother’s concerns? Did they tell you?”