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suggesting—’
    His expression was flinty, and she stopped.
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    He nodded. ‘We look at burglaries in the area, we’ll find a trail that way often, a spate of them, they go from house to house but in this case…’
    She looked around, wildly. ‘Were we burgled?’ Someone in the house. ‘I don’t … I don’t … nothing has gone, that I can see…’
    DS Gerard lifted a hand. ‘As I was about to say,’ he said, mildly, ‘there was only one report of a break-in last night and that was the other side of Oakenham, likely enough only kids anyway, by the sound of it.’
    Fran stared at the table, head down. ‘Right,’ she said, almost a whisper. ‘So you haven’t caught anyone.’
    ‘The first few hours are crucial, for gathering evidence,’ he told her and she felt him examining her face. ‘You’ll have heard that.’
    She barely shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything. This … nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’
    There’d been a police raid on one of Nick’s clubs a couple of months after they’d started going out. He’d been called out at three in the morning to deal with it and had come in again pale and tight-lipped as she was getting out of bed, making coffee. ‘Bastards,’ was all he’d say. She’d been at that club with him the night before: it was a classy place, restored to the original Edwardian fittings, tiny tables round a polished dance floor, each one with a little lamp and an old-fashioned phone.
    Little booths upstairs: she could remember it as if it was yesterday suddenly, though she hadn’t thought of the place in years. They’d sat in the gallery looking down on the dancers, with champagne in a bucket, and he’d told her about his plans. He’d gone to talk business with someone in the office and she’d gone down to the dance floor. An hour or so later she hadn’t stopped, flooded with the feeling and forgetful of where she was or why she looked up and there he was. Watching her from above the carved wooden balustrade, and when she looked up he had smiled.
    Nick wouldn’t let her near the club while the police were there – it was closed for eight days. He’d gone voluntarily to the police station to talk to them but he wouldn’t let her come and collect him when they’d finished. She’d never even talked to a policeman, but was that a brush with the police? She’d forgotten all about it, until now. They’d dropped the charges eventually, whatever they were.
    They’d walked past that club one day, she and Nathan, with a newborn Emme in the buggy. It had closed down and he watched her, as she paused to examine the fly-posters that plastered the boarded doors. She had never talked to Nathan about Nick, or about how it had ended, but he had put an arm out, around her shoulders as she stood there. ‘You don’t mind,’ he said, ironical, ‘your boring married life?’ She’d leaned her head against him. He had known, without her having to tell him. It seemed so comforting.
    Gerard was looking at her, as if he could see the thoughts in her head. Nathan’s arm around her. Their boring married life, far off as if through the wrong end of a telescope.
    ‘Of course,’ Gerard said, ‘we’ll also need to talk to you about your husband’s own contacts, social life, work … his movements last night…’
    There was a tap at the door and Carswell’s head appeared round it. He looked like a teenager. Gerard nodded to him and he slipped inside. ‘Detective Constable Carswell,’ he said, bobbing his head to her.
    Fran made as if to get to her feet but Gerard put a hand on her arm in a second. ‘He can make his own.’
    ‘Little one asleep?’ said Carswell, his back to them at the kettle. ‘My sister’s got one tharr’age.’ He didn’t seem to expect an answer.
    ‘Did your husband have friends out here?’ Gerard asked. ‘Old friends? Lads he went to the pub with?’
    She shrugged, helpless, yes, of course. Nathan must know