‘Well, Roger hadn’t lived here for a while. He had other properties and had been living between those. We were still married, officially, but I think we both knew deep down that was only the case on paper. If you catch my drift.’

‘I think so. Had you spoken about divorce at all?’

Alice shook her head and made a face that looked as if Caroline had just asked her if she’d ever considered fellating a horse. ‘Absolutely not. That’s not the sort of thing we do.’

‘I see. But did you still get on?’

‘We didn’t hate each other, if that’s what you mean. I was probably the only one who didn’t despise him.’

‘Go on,’ Caroline said, leaning in.

‘Roger didn’t exactly make friends easily. He found enemies came much more naturally. But I guess that’s the nature of business and local politics, isn’t it?’

‘I’d hope not, but maybe so.’

‘Do you have any examples?’ Dexter asked.

‘Oh, he used to get plenty of angry and threatening emails. Usually over planning applications of one sort or another. If he wasn’t connected with the development or construction in a business sense, he almost certainly would be in a political sense. People get angry about those sorts of things round here. They don’t like change.’

‘These emails,’ Dexter said, trying to get the conversation back on track. ‘Where might we be able to find them?’

‘Well, you’d have to check his work laptop. He didn’t really use it much, though. His office manager used to deal with most of that stuff. Sonya, her name is. Sometimes he’d get them on his personal account too, but not that often.’

‘And how did this affect family life?’ Caroline asked. ‘You have a daughter, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Hannah,’ Alice said, smiling.

‘And she’s how old?’

‘Nineteen.’

Caroline did a quick bit of mental maths. If Alice was around forty, she must have had Hannah quite young. It also meant Roger Clifton was around forty when he fathered a child with a woman not long out of school herself. ‘Does she live with you?’ Caroline asked.

‘She does, but she’s not in at the moment. She’s popped out to see some friends. You know how they are at that age.’

Caroline smiled and nodded. She did. She also knew there was no way a nineteen-year-old girl would leave her mobile phone on the kitchen work surface, and that it was very unlikely her mother would own the latest iPhone with a pink sparkly protective case that said Glamour Bitch.

‘I don’t suppose you happen to be religious, do you?’ Caroline asked.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I just wondered. You seemed to imply that divorce wasn’t an option,’ she said, thinking on her feet.

‘Well that has nothing to do with religion. I’m a Methodist.’