‘I don’t know! I think maybe nothing happened to her. I think maybe she had an accident and now she is dead and you should go away and leave us alone.’

She swung the basket round and hurried out through the door. This time I didn’t try to stop her. In her anger and her sense of martyrdom she had told me something which perhaps she hadn’t intended. I decided to check it out.

I went straight back up to my room and found the number of Knightsbridge Knannies, the agency that Aiden had mentioned. He had used it to find Eloise in the first place. I rang it, pretending to be a mother who was considering her for a job. The woman at the other end of the line was surprised.

‘I didn’t realise that Ms Radmani had left her current employ,’ she told me.

Does anyone still use the word ‘employ’ as a noun? But I suppose it was that sort of agency.

‘She’s still with the MacNeils,’ I assured her. ‘But I’m afraid she’s been having difficulties which have made her reconsider her position. You may have heard that Mrs MacNeil disappeared … ’

‘Oh yes. Of course.’ That mollified her.

‘I’ve interviewed her and I think she’s wonderful but I just wanted to check one small detail on her resumé. Miss Radmani told me she had worked in an advertising agency and as it happens my husband works in advertising so I was just wondering which one it was.’

There was a pause and I heard the click of a computer keyboard as she found the information. ‘It was McCann Erickson,’ she said.

‘Thank you very much.’

‘If you speak to Ms Radmani again you might ask her to contact us. And if it doesn’t work out with her I’m sure we can help you find a suitable candidate.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be in touch.’

I hung up and went over to my desk to open my computer, searching for the newspaper cuttings that I had looked at in London. The screen seemed to take an age to boot up but finally there it was in front of me, just as I had thought. It was from Campaign, the advertising magazine.

Sundowner, the Sydney-based advertising agency set up by former McCann Erickson supremo Frank Parris, has gone out of business. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission – the country’s official financial watchdog – confirmed that after just three years the agency has ceased to trade.

Frank Parris had worked at McCann Erickson. Eloise Radmani had been a receptionist there. The two of them must have known each other. And now she was here. Atticus Pünd had often said that there were no coincidences when you were investigating a crime. ‘Everything in life has a pattern and a coincidence is simply the moment when that pattern becomes briefly visible.’

I wondered if he was right.

Back to Westleton

I left the hotel and drove back to Heath House, the family home that had been left to Frank Parris and his sister, Joanne Williams. This time there was nobody working outside so I rang the front doorbell and waited until it was opened. Martin Williams stood facing me, dressed in the same blue overalls as last time. He was holding a hammer, which was an unpleasant reminder of why I was here and indeed why I had come to Suffolk in the first place – but then he was obviously the sort of man who enjoyed doing odd jobs around the house when he wasn’t on the phone selling art insurance.

‘Susan!’ He seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see me. Or perhaps, in a strange way, he was both. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’

I wondered if he knew what his wife had said to me when I left.

‘I’m very sorry to have to trouble you again, Martin. But I’m leaving England soon and a couple of things have turned up. If I could talk to you, it won’t take more than five or ten minutes.’

‘Do come in,’ he said, adding cheerfully, ‘I don’t think Joanne will be too happy to see you, though.’

‘Yes. She made that very clear.’

‘It’s nothing personal, Susan. It’s just that she and Frank weren’t particularly close and she’d much rather forget the whole thing.’

‘Wouldn’t we all?’ I muttered but I don’t think he heard.

He led me into the kitchen where Joanne was working, mixing something in a bowl. She turned and the half-smile on her face instantly faded when she saw who it was. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. This time there wasn’t even a pretence of politeness – and certainly no offer of tea, peppermint or otherwise.

‘It’s very simple.’ I sat down as if to claim my place in the house. I also hoped it would make it a little more difficult for them to throw me out. ‘The last time I was here, you told me two things that weren’t true.’ I had plunged straight into it. The way Joanne was looking at me, I knew I had to get this over with as quickly as possible. ‘First of all, you said that Frank Parris wanted you to invest in a new agency, but since then I’ve learned that actually he had come to claim his half of the house – your house. He was going to force you to sell.’

‘That’s none of your business!’ Joanne was brandishing the wooden spoon like a weapon and I was glad I hadn’t arrived when she was cutting meat. ‘You have absolutely no right to be here and we don’t need to talk to you. If you don’t leave my house, I’ll call the police.’

‘I’m working with the police now,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to tell them what I know?’

‘I don’t care who you’re working with. Get out of here.’

‘Hold on a minute, Jo.’ Martin was equable in a way that was almost sinister. ‘Who gave you that information?’ he asked me. ‘I think we have a right to know.’

Obviously, I couldn’t tell them the truth. I had no particular fondness for Sajid Khan but nor did I want to get him into trouble. ‘I’ve been talking to one of the estate agents in Framlingham,’ I explained. ‘Frank wanted to know the likely value of the house and he told them he had a property that was coming onto the market. He also told them why.’

Even as I was making all this up, I thought it sounded unlikely. But Martin chose to believe me and didn’t seem at all put out. ‘I wonder what it is, exactly, you’re suggesting, Susan?’

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. ‘Why did you lie to me?’ I asked.

‘Well, first of all because it was none of your business. Joanne’s right about that. And although I’d say it’s quite rude of you to suggest otherwise, what we told you wasn’t actually so very far away from the truth. Frank wanted the money to start a new company and he looked on us as investors. Neither of us was particularly happy about it. We both love Heath House. Joanne’s lived here all her life. But we spoke to our solicitor and there was nothing we could do so we resigned ourselves.’ He shrugged. ‘And then, of course, Frank died.’

‘We had nothing to do with it,’ Joanne added, unnecessarily. Her words only made it more likely that they had.

‘You said there were two things,’ Martin said.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Joanne stared at her husband with exasperation.

‘We have nothing to hide. If Susan has questions she wants to put to us, I think it’s only right and proper that we should answer them.’ He smiled at me. ‘So?’

‘You told me that Frank Parris had complained about the wedding at Branlow Hall. His view had been obstructed by a marquee.’

‘I think I remember that.’

‘Well, that doesn’t quite work. He came to see you early on Friday morning. The marquee wasn’t delivered until Friday lunchtime.’ This was the information that both Aiden MacNeil and Lawrence Treherne had given me. Somehow it had lingered in my consciousness, almost like a flaw in an early first draft. Now I waited for a reply. ‘I wonder how you explain that,’ I said.

Martin Williams was unfazed. ‘I’m not sure that I do.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Frank must have made a mistake.’

‘He couldn’t have had his view obstructed by something that wasn’t there.’

‘Then maybe he lied to us.’

‘Or maybe you went to the hotel later that evening and saw the marquee yourself,’ I suggested.

‘But why would I have gone to the hotel, Susan? And why wouldn’t I have told you if I had?’

‘This is ridiculous!’ Joanne insisted. ‘We shouldn’t be talking to this woman … ’

‘Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that I killed my brother-in-law because I didn’t want to have to sell the house,’ Martin continued. He looked at me and there was something in his eyes that I had never seen before. It was a sort of menace that quite unnerved me. What made it all the more shocking was that we were sitting in this pleasant country kitchen with its Aga and its hanging pots and pans and vases of dried flowers. It was all so ordinary and Martin was completely relaxed in his shabby work clothes. And yet he was staring me out, challenging me. I glanced at Joanne and I knew that she had seen it too. She was afraid for me.

‘Of course I don’t think that,’ I said.

‘Then if you’ve got nothing else to ask me, I think Joanne’s right and you should leave.’

Neither of them moved. I stood up, feeling quite breathless. ‘I’ll show myself out,’ I said.

‘Yes. And please don’t come back.’