‘There’s more information I’d like to share with you,’ I said.

‘Oh? That’s very generous.’

‘I know, Niall, that you got in touch with Alexandra Richards after Ingrid’s death.’

‘Well, wasn’t that nice of me? I wanted to commiserate with her. I am the girl’s father, after all.’

‘But why this sudden appearance of paternal feeling? You hadn’t demonstrated much of it in her life up until then.’

‘What are you saying, Ellen?’ He sounded testy now. ‘Could you get to the point?’

‘All right. I think you cosied up to Alexandra because you wanted her to hide the fact that you’d been to Ingrid’s flat in Brunswick Square the evening before she died.’

He looked as if he was about to come up with some blustering denial but, after a slight head movement from Grace, he just said, ‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because you thought Alexandra would be so over the moon about your suddenly taking an interest in her, that she’d do as you asked.’ A silence. ‘Which is what happened. Though, by not revealing that you’d been to Ingrid’s flat that evening, Alexandra very nearly got into trouble with the police.’

‘Did she?’ he asked drily.

‘Did you know that she’d got a boyfriend?’ I asked.

‘No. I really know nothing about the girl. But isn’t that heart-warming news?’ he said snidely. ‘It demonstrates the happy truth that there’s someone for everyone, regardless of looks, doesn’t it?’

‘The boyfriend’s name is Walt Rainbird.’

‘Fascinating.’

‘And, for reasons of his own, whose details I won’t bother you with, he followed Alexandra from Hastings to Brunswick Square that evening and, parked in his car, he watched and made a note of everyone who went in and out of Ingrid’s building.’

Niall Connor’s face went suddenly pale. ‘So he saw me?’

‘He saw you go in. And he saw you come out.’

‘Ah.’

‘So, why did you go and see Ingrid Richards that evening, Niall?’

‘Since you know about the memoir and since you’ve heard Phil Dickie’s inaccurate account of events in Beirut in 1986, I think you ought to be able to answer that for yourself, Ellen.’

‘All right.’ He was still defiant, but cracks were beginning to appear in his carapace of confidence. I knew I could take my time. ‘Then I would assume that you went to Brunswick Square to find out what Ingrid was planning to write in her memoir. Whether she was proposing to present an alternative version of the springing of Paul McClennan from captivity. In other words, to expose the fact that you’d only achieved the coup that transformed your professional life by stealing another journalist’s research, by following the plans that another journalist had set up.’

‘I see.’

I pressed on, ‘And if Ingrid was planning that kind of exposé, I’m sure you were thinking of ways to stop her memoir from ever being published.’

‘Oh, I see,’ he said again. ‘You’re thinking that the fire which killed Ingrid was not an accident. That someone, knowing her habit of hoarding old newspapers, saw a way of removing her. That that someone, also knowing her drinking habits, doctored a bottle of Jameson’s with crushed-up Zopiclone and—’