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parents’ disappearance. I’m also aware that the press have tried to link the two cases. While we’re not ruling anything out the information we have been given by the team who originally investigated your mother and your father’s disappearance seems to suggest that there is no link.’
    Rose nodded.
    ‘The second thing I wanted to say was this; you two lived in this house when Daisy was buried here. You may have been out or away on holiday but still, when you came back, this young girl was in her grave not more than thirty metres away from you. If that makes you feel awful, then I’m sorry but the truth is it’s not your feelings I’m interested in. I want to find out who did this to Daisy. I will find out and I’m hoping you will help me. I want to know anything you remember about that summer, no matter how small it is. I don’t expect you to tell me anything today, just think on it.’
    Wendy Clarke opened the back door. The first thing that Rose saw was a tent that had been erected down the back of the garden. It was white and went from fence to fence. It looked like a marquee; as if there were preparations for a party going on.
    The three of them walked out on to the yellow paving stones, still there, a little brighter as if they’d been cleaned up. There was a smart garden table and chairs as well as a patio heater, standing like a standard lamp above it all. The garden itself had been worked on, the lawn flat and even, the shrubs neat, the earth around them dark and soft.
    ‘The owners planned to build an outbuilding at the rear of the garden, a kind of office, I think. The builders were digging foundations when they found Daisy. She was well hidden. It was a properly dug grave, not something someone could just stumble on. Plus there was an old rockery nearby and a lot of the stones had been used to cover up the space.’
    Rose frowned. She had no memory of a rock garden. She rarely went down to the overgrown end of the garden. She hadn’t liked the buzzing insects and the foliage and the grass was always too long and seemed damp and mulchy. She preferred to stay up on the patio.
    ‘Did you ever use the door at the end of the garden?’
    Rose shook her head.
    ‘Not often,’ Joshua said. ‘It did open but it was stiff and anyhow we hardly ever used that part of the garden. Dad hated gardening. He liked barbecues but that was as far as it went with gardens. I went out of it a few times, on my bike. There’s an alley there that runs down the back of the houses.’
    ‘Do you think someone brought the body in that way?’ Rose said.
    ‘It’s too soon to tell,’ Wendy Clarke said.
    The detective looked as if she was going to go off but then she placed her bag on the table and took a small tin out of it. Taking the lid off she picked out a roll-up. Rose could see several other home-made cigarettes there. Wendy lit it with a lighter. She inhaled.
    ‘So, either of you two remember Daisy?’
    ‘I saw her around a bit. She worked in a newsagent’s on the High Street. She was mates with our old babysitter, Sandy Nicholls. She lived too far along to be a neighbour, you know, someone you see going in and out of their house,’ Joshua said.
    Wendy Clarke nodded. She held the cigarette tightly with her thumb and forefinger. It looked fragile – as if it might crumble at any moment.
    ‘And you, Rose?’
    ‘I saw her a few times. I’ve got a vague memory of her with Sandy out on the street but I never spoke to her. I was eleven. She wasn’t someone who moved in my orbit.’
    ‘ Orbit ,’ Wendy repeated, nodding her head.
    She blew out smoke and used the fingers of her other hand to pinch the end of the roll-up, putting it out. She replaced it in the tin as though she was saving it for later.
    ‘OK, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let you two sit here for a short while. You absolutely mustn’t come any closer because this is a crime scene. You shouldn’t really be here, in this garden,