There was a joint, rustling murmur that of course they weren’t and how none of it mattered.

“On the other hand,” said Gwen, “have you thought that you may need some advice? I mean, legal advice.”

“Legal advice?” Fergus had come into the room with a plate of biscuits. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Gwen, slowly and carefully, “if they were talking to Ellie about when she went to the scene, and asking if anybody was with her to corroborate what she was saying . . .” She turned to me. “It feels awful even to say it but you’re the one, after all, who’s been claiming that Greg’s death was not what they assumed, was inexplicable. So it looks as if they might be thinking that . . .” But she stopped, unable to say it out loud.

“That I had something to do with it,” I finished for her. “Yes. That I was taking revenge on my husband and his presumed lover . . . So, are you going to ask if I’ve got an alibi?”

“No, of course not,” said Mary, in a shocked tone.

“Of course it’ll never come to that,” I said. “But I sort of do.” I tried to recall the day in accurate detail. The terrible news had been such a blow that it was as if it had eliminated everything that went before. But I could remember. “I’d had a good day, funny as it may seem. I’d been working on a rather beautiful Georgian chair. It had taken longer than I’d expected so in the end I had to jump in a cab and take it down to the company who had hired me to do it for them. It was a solicitors’ office just off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I remember the time because I was in a rush to get there before they closed. It must have been just a couple of minutes before six. When I handed it over, I had to sign a receipt for them, showing I’d delivered it. I wrote the date and the time on it. So I couldn’t have been in East London tampering with my husband’s car, if that’s what was required. There we are. Too much information.”

There was another awkward silence.

“But why are they even looking at the scene of the crash?” said Joe.

“Yes,” said Mary. “It was an accident. We were at the inquest.”

“God knows,” I said. “I’ve caused so much trouble with my blundering around that the police don’t know what they think anymore. It doesn’t bother me. I’m finished with it all. I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago, which is get myself sorted out, be good, do some useful work.”