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Look, I know it was in fact quite nosy of me, but I must confess I did keep peeking out of the window to see if Gareth’s car had arrived back at the house yet.

Not every second, mind you. Just every so often, I would gander past the window and just have a glance between the split in the curtains.

It wasn’t my fault that I had quite an advantageous view of their kitchen from my house.

It had made for some quite interesting viewing over the past few months, to see them moving in, their canoodling, their arguing, or even the moment the police had arrested Fran when she returned to the house.

Now that was particularly shocking for a Thursday afternoon.

So, I went back to knitting my jumpers. I had no idea how Fran had managed to get out of prison, get back to her house, and sit with a cup of tea at her kitchen table.

She had a risotto cooking away behind her and a lovely set of Azulejo plates I hadn’t seen before laid out on the table.

Gosh, it only felt like only yesterday that I was testifying in her trial.

But I was certainly glad she was home. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was the one who had murdered Gordon O’Neill.

That much was obvious. I had seen Fran enter O’Neill’s on that Saturday morning in September and come out a long while later, hauling two heavy bin bags that had almost certainly contained what was left of him.

Tony had just finished his dinner when I saw what was unmistakably Gareth’s car slowing down to turn into our street, and then park up into his driveway.

He looked somewhat forlorn as he got out of the car and walked up to his house.

But he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks when I saw him notice the kitchen light was on.

I had never seen a man so quickly launch up the steps and yank open the door.

I watched Fran’s face light up when she saw him, but she didn’t move to him straight away. The two just stood there, staring at each other.

‘So, who goes first?’ I read his lips saying. ‘Me first? You first?’

‘What?’ Fran asked.

‘Sixty seconds. How was your day?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘How about you? Solve any murders?’

‘A few,’ he replied.

She charged over to him and wrapped her arms around him tight in such a way I thought she may never let him go.

She slowly pulled her head away from his chest and placed her hands on his cheeks.

The two looked at each other for a while, staring longingly into each other’s eyes with relief.

I couldn’t make out for sure if tears were streaming down their faces, but it certainly looked like both of them had a case of the waterworks.

I noticed their elderly cat slowly creeping into the room, tenderly beginning to nudge and nuzzle Fran’s leg while the two embraced.

They kissed, and then embraced again. But then I watched Gareth, with Fran still planted into his torso, reach into his back pocket and slowly bring something out. I watched Fran push herself away, a little concerned, as he placed the item on the kitchen table.

She seemed in shock, at first. Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped as she stared at the blood-stained bronze ring that Gareth had dispassionately dropped onto the table, a small stream of clotted blood dropping onto the veneer.

Then it turned to a look of recognition, as if there was some meaning to this.

She didn’t say anything to him, didn’t burst into a frenzy or launch into an interrogation.

He said nothing, as if he didn’t know how to explain to his partner what he had done.

Instead, she looked up at her husband, he looked down at his wife, and she gently and silently reached out to slip her hand into his.