For when all was said and done, it was she who’d driven off into the night with Terry Parker – not Juliet. It was she who’d been in the car when he’d slumped over the wheel and drove them into a snow ditch – not Jasper. It was she who’d run off into the night, failing to report it – not Mrs Millicent Vander.

And she’d read the piece in the papers, saying that the police were still investigating the crash, and asking for people with knowledge about it to come forward. Was she breaking the law in not saying anything? She’d been to the pictures once, when one of the leading ladies had been arrested for being an accessory after the fact, or some such thing.

What if they came for her? What if she was arrested? Her mother would be … But here, Patsy’s imagination failed her for once. She was simply unable to imagine the shame and scandal.

Which was why, over the last thirty-six hours or so, her nerves had gradually stretched and expanded to breaking point. She’d now reached the point where she simply couldn’t stand it any longer.

What if, even now, the twins were already telling the police lies about her? Covering their tracks and dropping her right in it, as was their wont? She’d have no chance to defend herself! Who would the police believe, after all? The oh-so-respectable Vanders, or a nobody like herself?

Surely it was far better that she looked out for herself and got her version of events in first. So it was that she slipped out of the house early that morning, taking a copy of the Oxford Tribune with her, and walked to the nearest phone box.

There she called the number given out by Duncan Gillingham and asked to speak to WPC Trudy Loveday. The very act of finally doing something to relieve the pressure she’d been living under made her lean against the icy glass of the phone booth in weak-kneed relief.

She almost cried in frustration when she was informed that WPC Loveday was unavailable. She’d worked herself up to the point of confession, and now there was no relief in sight after all.

Nevertheless, she managed to hold it together long enough to leave a message.

‘My name is Patsy Arles.’ She recited her address quickly, and in a rush, before her courage could desert her, said quickly, ‘Can you asked WPC Loveday to call on me as soon as she can? I have information about that man who died in a car crash on New Year’s Eve.’

She hung up before the police operative on the other end could ask for more details.

*