The cat seemed even smaller and thinner on the stainless-steel table. She quivered under the vet’s dry hands.

‘A stray?’

‘Not really a stray, more homeless, I think.’ Jenny touched its ears, immediately raising that grateful, rusty purr. ‘Is she going to be OK?’

The vet frowned and cocked her head to the side. ‘She’s underweight, and has ringworm. And her eye is pretty badly infected. I’ll need to give it a good clean under anaesthetic and then give you a two-week course of antibiotics.’ She stroked one ear. ‘You’ve been through the wars, haven’t you little one? Pick her up tomorrow at ten.’

‘OK. Um, I don’t have insurance or anything. I mean, she’s not my cat. It sounds awful but how much will all this cost?’

‘It depends what we find but more than two hundred pounds, I’d say.’ The vet left a significant pause.

Jenny nodded to herself. ‘OK. Yes. I’ll find it somehow.’

‘We might be able to set up a payment plan.’

‘That’d help, thanks.’ She gave the cat one last stroke. ‘Got to take care of her, haven’t we?’

‘And does she have a name?’

‘God, I haven’t thought of that… Claudine? That’s a good name. See you tomorrow, Claudine!’

Claudine closed her good eye in response.

The police called her just as she was leaving the surgery. Just another chat. There was no need for her to come to the station, they’d pop along to see her this time if that was all right?

This time, the fear was different, less diffuse. She saw herself reflected in the surgery window, strangely distorted, deathly pale, and so much like Sal.

Like Sal dead in the snow.

She hurried home and spent half an hour putting on make-up, each careful dab and stroke blurred the resemblance to Sal, and her sleep-deprived, indistinct features became gradually more definite. More her own.

Safe. You’re safe. Safe. You’re safe. Everything you can do to stay safe, you’ve done.

Then the doorbell rang.

It was the Dawn French woman with a younger officer she vaguely recognised. They sat down after commenting on the weather (Rain. You’d never know we were nearly snowed in a week back, would you?). They refused tea. Was that a bad sign? Sal had never offered the police tea whenever they’d come round, so Jenny couldn’t tell. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths. Damp the panic down, stamp it down. Don’t let them see it.

‘Are you all right there?’ the younger officer said.

‘I’m… scared,’ Jenny admitted. ‘I’ve never really had any dealings with the police before. It’s all a bit… overwhelming.’

The Dawn French woman, sitting heavily on one of the spindly kitchen chairs, shuffled forward with a creak. ‘Well, like I told you yesterday, it’s all routine. There’s nothing to be concerned about. Just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.’ She smiled.

What did the smile mean? What kind of a smile was that?

Jen smiled at her tiredly. ‘I think I just watch too much TV, that’s all.’

‘It’s nothing like the TV shows,’ the woman said. ‘It’s a lot more mundane than that. No, we just want to double-check: when did you leave your mother’s house the night she died?’

Jenny closed her eyes. ‘I want to say ten? Around ten. But I can’t swear to it, I’m sorry.’

‘No, that’s fine. And did you see anyone on your way back to the Lees-Hill house?’

‘No. No one. The weather was too bad.’ She frowned then. ‘I do remember seeing a car on the high street though, and thinking how horrible it would be to drive in all that snow.’

‘Car?’

‘Yes, it was red, I think, but I couldn’t tell you the make… and a man was driving – I saw his face by the traffic lights.’

‘You didn’t mention that before.’ The woman shifted. Her shirt rolled up slightly, and Jenny could see the pink and white crenulations the elasticated waistband of her slacks had dug into her flesh.

‘God, sorry. I didn’t think about it before. You asked if I’d seen anyone in the street, and I hadn’t. I’d forgotten about the car until now.’

‘And you saw the man’s face?’

‘Yes, but only from the side and just for a second or two. White guy, short dark hair.’ She made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘That’s all I saw. Why?’ Her face froze. ‘Wait, do you think that man had something to do with Mum—?’

The woman looked alarmed. ‘No. No. Nothing like that. A person came forward today.’ She took out her notebook. ‘He was driving back from the airport. He says he saw you walking past the Rose and Crown at 10.30 p.m. He remembers because it was snowing hard and you weren’t wearing a coat.’ The woman put the notebook down, and her blue eyes rested on her kindly. As kindly as they could, anyway. ‘So, what this means is, we have no reason to ask you any more questions.’ The room sang with silence.

‘I don’t really understand?’ Jenny managed after a moment.

‘The post-mortem reports “Death by Misadventure”. Basically, it’s as we thought; sadly, your mum slipped and fell on the ice. The alcohol in her system and the medication probably made her more unsteady, and we know from talking to you and others that she’d had similar accidents in the past. All this, coupled with someone seeing you walking back, means that there’s no case.’

‘You mean against me? Is that what you mean?’ Jenny’s voice broke. ‘God, I didn’t even think of that!’

The woman was apologetically solemn. ‘We have to investigate an unexplained death, you understand.’

‘Oh, yes, of course!’ Jenny said quickly. ‘It’s just… It’s only just dawned on me how bad this could have been. Worse I mean.’ Despite the flooding adrenaline her eyes remained stubbornly droopy, fatigued. She put one shaking hand up to her hair, and through her tired mind the phrase drummed: It’s over it’s done with over it’s done with. ‘So, I can organise her funeral?’ Her voice broke further.

‘Yes, that’s something you can do now.’

Tears, large and hot, welled and spilled, and the tension rolled off her in palpable waves, making her stutter, making her shake. It’s over it’s over it’s over…

When they left, a peace, heavy as a shroud, fell on her shoulders. She slept for the next three hours and didn’t dream. When she woke, she saw that her make-up had transferred itself onto the pillow, like a vivid Turin shroud but, rather than changing the pillowcase, she lay back down, drowsily, with her smudged eyes open, smiling. One clenched hand furled open, closed, opened again.