‘I only wanted to find the letter!’ Geoffrey Thorpe yelped in frustration and panic, and then went abruptly white. Slowly, he leaned forward and dropped his despairing head into his cupped hands and let out a long, low moan. ‘Oh Lord,’ he muttered, shaking his head, ‘I wish I’d never written the damned thing!’

Trudy, caught by surprise at this, couldn’t help but cast the sergeant a quick, searching look. O’Grady, in response, simply nodded his chin towards the broken man in the chair opposite, indicating her to get on with it.

‘What letter is this, Mr Thorpe?’ Trudy asked gently.

Geoffrey sighed heavily and rubbed a tired and visibly shaking hand across his face. ‘It was when I first learned what he’d been up to. I was so angry that I wrote him a formal letter, threatening to take him to court, threatening to see his reputation ruined and the scandal splashed across the papers …’

Geoffrey sighed again and raised his head, his face lined with worry. ‘Of course, once I’d calmed down, I changed my mind. As you know, I told you all about it when you came to my house. Exposing him would mean ruining the business, which wouldn’t do me any good, would it? Instead, we worked out the repayment scheme that I told you about. But when Terry died, and you came asking questions, and wouldn’t let it go, I realised something might be … well, funny, about the accident. And I felt afraid.’

He drew in a wavering breath and shook his head. ‘I just became obsessed by that damned letter,’ he admitted heavily. ‘I thought, if you found it, and something, well, funny, had happened to Terry, that you, the police, would find the letter and think it was me who was responsible. But it wasn’t! I didn’t do anything to Terry or his car.’

He looked at Trudy with wide, utterly tired eyes, and then glanced at O’Grady. ‘But I was the obvious suspect, wasn’t I? Like you said, he was stealing from me. Who else would you suspect? I couldn’t find the letter at the office, and it wasn’t in his house. So the only other place it could be was in the car.’

Trudy looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Are you admitting to having broken into the deceased’s house as well, Mr Thorpe?’

‘What? No, he kept a spare key in the shed … Oh what’s the use?’ the older man said, lying his head tiredly down on his hands which were now resting flat against the tabletop. He reminded Trudy of a little boy who wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and pretend that the bad things weren’t really happening to him.