‘Does she get migraines?’ Rachel said.
‘Does she heck. That meant “Come get me now”. We’d ride to the rescue and no feelings were hurt.’
‘Did this friend get the hint?’
‘No. But they ended up at different secondary schools. Never seen her since. So, you and Sean, what’s your safe word?’
Rachel laughed. ‘You must be joking. No way does he get to tie me up and hit me. Other way round maybe.’
‘Dominatrix,’ Janet said.
‘You should try that with Ade, long black boots, fishnets-’
‘Shut up! We’re way past that.’
‘You’re blushing,’ Rachel said.
Janet just narrowed her eyes and pointedly put the radio on.
It started to rain as they entered the town; a mist of fine drops speckled the windscreen and blurred the view. The address they had was a few streets back from the seafront. Pale-blue painted walls and a stripy awning over the front door. SAT TV, Wi-Fi and Vacancies signs in the window. A B &B. One of many. All with vacancies, from what Rachel could see.
The woman who answered the door was in her sixties, on the fat side and wore denim trousers and a navy needlecord shirt with a small print of birds on it. Her hair was brown, dyed, Rachel reckoned, cut fairly short. Practical, easy to look after.
‘Judith Kavanagh?’ Janet said.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m DC Janet Scott from the Manchester Metropolitan Police and this is my colleague DC Rachel Bailey. Could we come in for a minute?’
The woman pulled a face, half-wry, puzzled to find the police on her doorstep but not alarmed, which was a more common reaction. Was she hiding any consternation? Probably not fair to cast her as a potential villain on first sight but Rachel understood that most victims were known to their killers. Though picturing Mrs Kavanagh with a gun and a can of petrol took some doing.
The property was bigger than it looked from the outside. ‘We’d better go through to the back,’ Judith Kavanagh said. They passed a residents’ lounge, dining room and kitchen and then went through a door marked private and into what served as her own living room. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she said once they’d sat down. A slight Welsh lilt in her accent.
‘No, thank you,’ said Janet. ‘Can I just check, you are married to Richard Kavanagh?’
‘Yes. Why?’ Worry was creeping into her expression.
‘I’m sorry, I need to check a few more details,’ Janet said. ‘You married on the twenty-third of April 1972?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you please give me your date of birth.’
She did and Janet noted it. ‘And this is your usual address?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And your husband lives here?’