‘Yes.’

I heard everything, I noticed everything. I saw how the younger one looked up at the older one as she said the words, and I noticed she had a hole in her black tights. The older officer’s mouth opened and closed but didn’t seem synchronized with the words she was speaking so that I had to strain to make sense of them. The smell of risotto reached me from the kitchen, and I remembered that I hadn’t turned the ring off and it would be dry and ruined. Then I remembered, with a stupid dullness, that of course it didn’t matter if it was ruined: nobody would be eating it now. Behind me I heard the wind fling a few dry leaves against the bay window. It was dark outside. Dark and chilly. In a few weeks’ time the clocks would go back. In a couple of months it would be Christmas.

She said, ‘I am very sorry, your husband has been in a fatal accident.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Though I did. The words made sense. Fatal accident. My legs felt as if they didn’t know how to hold me up any more.

‘Can we get you something? A glass of water, perhaps?’

‘You say…’

‘Your husband’s car left the road,’ she said slowly and patiently. Her mouth stretched and shrank.

‘Dead?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry for your loss.’

‘The car caught fire.’ It was the first time the younger woman had spoken. Her face was plump and pale; there was a faint smudge of mascara under one of her brown eyes. She wears contact lenses, I thought.

‘Mrs Falkner, do you understand what we have said?’

‘Yes.’

‘There was a passenger in the car.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He was with someone else. A woman. We thought… Well, we had thought it might be you.’

I stared dumbly at her. Did she expect me to produce identification?

‘Do you know who that would have been?’

‘I was just cooking supper for us. He should have been home by now.’

‘Your husband’s passenger.’

‘I don’t know.’ I rubbed my face. ‘Didn’t she have her bag with her or anything?’