‘Phil Dickie had had a pretty rough time since he was airlifted from Beirut. He suffered from PTSD, apart from anything else.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Became a bit reclusive, certainly didn’t want to talk to the press about the events he’d witnessed.’

‘Quite a common reaction. Those experiences take a lot of people that way. Whereas it only makes proper journalists hungry for more.’

I ignored his grandstanding. ‘After he’d heard about Ingrid’s death, Phil was prepared to talk to me about what he saw.’

‘Oh?’

‘Just before the car bomb was detonated, Ingrid was about to do a piece to camera. He was setting up to record it.’

‘Not surprising. That was her job. And filming it was his job.’

‘The piece to camera was about the hostage Paul McClennan. Ingrid had managed to make contact with one of his captors. She’d made arrangements, she’d bribed the right people, and was preparing to spring the hostage from the apartment in Southern Beirut where he was being held. She had asked Phil Dickie if he was prepared to take the risk of going with her to film the whole process. He’d agreed. It was the kind of coup he wanted to be part of.’

There was silence in the perfect sitting room. The way Grace Bellamy was looking at her husband told me that all of this was news to her too. Niall said nothing. I went on, ‘Ingrid had put all the details of her mission, maps, passwords, names of contacts, into the leather satchel she always carried around with her.’

Still nothing from Niall. No reaction from the handsome, lived-in face.

‘When the bomb exploded, Phil was thrown forward towards Ingrid. He saw she’d been hit in the forehead by shrapnel. Blood everywhere. He thought she’d been killed. But, just before he lost consciousness, Phil Dickie saw someone step forward and take the leather satchel from around her neck. He recognized you, Niall.’

‘It isn’t true!’ This was from Grace. ‘Tell her, darling! Tell her it’s not true!’

Niall Connor smiled an infuriatingly calm smile. ‘It doesn’t make a lot of difference whether it is true or not. I rescued Paul McClennan. I sprang the hostage from where he was being held. That’s the story that was reported in the world’s press. And, of course, at the time there were people who said I couldn’t have done it. Conspiracy theorists. There wasn’t social media back then, thank God. But, even now, there are people out on Facebook and Twitter going on about Paul McClennan, saying that I didn’t rescue him, that the Hezbollah handed him over for reasons of their own. It doesn’t matter. The story’s out there. No one’s going to publish an alternative version. There’s no one who can do it … particularly now the sainted Ingrid Richards is no longer with us.’

His smile had now turned triumphant. ‘Well, Ellen, I don’t think Grace and I need to entertain you and your conspiracy theory any longer. Unless there’s some other wild accusation you want to offer us …?’