“Take your time, Billy,” Logan said. “We’ve got all night.”

There was a sob, a deep, wet-sounding sniff, then Billy removed his hands from his mouth and placed them down on the table, one atop the other.

“There was a girl. One of the… I don’t know. Actresses from his films. Something had happened. I think some… I don’t know, partner in the business, or something, had… Well, he’d… Can I say ‘sampled the merchandise’? Would that be appropriate?”

“He’d had sexual intercourse with her?” said Heather. The bluntness of it made Billy flinch.

“Yes. I mean, I think… So Archie told me. I got the impression it was an unwelcome advance, too.”

“He raped her?” asked Logan.

Another flinch from Billy. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really. The man had built his career on cheeky innuendo. His was a world where sex was never explicitly mentioned but implied with a laugh, and a wink, and the occasional parp of a bicycle horn. Talking about rape was unlikely to sit comfortably with him.

“I mean… I don’t know. I’m just saying what was implied by Archie. You’d have to ask the young lady herself.”

“Jazmin?”

Billy drew back like the word was dripping with poison. “Um, yes. Yes, that’s her. I never… I didn’t meet her, but that was her name, yes.” He squeezed his hands together like he was trying to stop them clamping over his mouth again. His eyes swam, flicking from one detective to the other and back again. “Oh, God. She wants her back, doesn’t she? She wants her back?”

“He gave you the baby,” Logan realised. “He gave you Jazmin’s baby.”

Billy nodded, his tightening throat silencing him more effectively than his hands could ever hope to. He choked, coughed, then retched so violently his whole body heaved and both DCIs pushed their chairs back to escape the expected spray of vomit that, fortunately, didn’t arrive.

“Sorry,” he whimpered. “Sorry, I just… God. It was meant to be straightforward. God, Louise! It’s going to destroy her. We couldn’t have kids. Not of our own. Or… I couldn’t. And she wanted them so, so much. Always has. But we couldn’t adopt. We tried, but… I hit a child. I was a teacher, and I hit a child.” He banged a fist on the table. “Darren fucking Priestley!”

He did cover his mouth then, practically wedging the hand he’d struck the table with into his mouth as he fought to hold himself together.