‘Well …’ she responded, almost coyly. ‘Everything I told them was the truth. But I didn’t tell the whole truth. There were some details that I didn’t think they needed to know.’

‘Oh?’

‘For instance …’ She sounded on the edge of schoolgirlish giggles as she said, ‘I didn’t tell them what I saw when I drove away from Brunswick Square that night.’

‘So, what did you see?’ I asked patiently.

‘I had my headlights on full because there were no other cars on the road and, as I moved out of my parking space, I saw, only a couple of parking spaces away, Walt’s car.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And he was sitting in it.’

‘Do you know how long he’d been there?’

‘No. But, needless to say, Ellen, I felt wonderful.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it showed how much he loved me.’

After the call had ended, I found myself wondering whether Alexandra could really be as naïve as she appeared to be. Didn’t she realize that what she’d just told me placed Walt firmly in the frame as a suspect? She reckoned he’d followed her from Hastings to Brunswick Square because he didn’t want her to have any secrets from him. He wanted to know who she was visiting there. She said at that stage he knew nothing about Ingrid’s existence, so he was checking up on his girlfriend’s movements to see if she was visiting another lover. She found that very flattering. And she considered it was a demonstration of his love.

My reading of the situation was that, although Alexandra hadn’t mentioned Ingrid, Walt could easily have found out about her. He and Alexandra were cohabiting, for God’s sake. I’d actually observed his lack of inhibition about going through her papers. There was bound to be something in the Hastings house that referenced Ingrid Richards.

A cynic – which I wasn’t usually, though with Walt I was once again prepared to make an exception – a cynic might very quickly have put him on the list of potential murderers. I couldn’t forget his claim to being ‘someone who could sort out her problems with her mother, once and for all’.

I didn’t think it would be long before Walt was on the police radar.

NINETEEN

That Monday evening, Ben went all quiet on me. He did come out of his room for supper, which he ate in complete silence. I knew better than to try and initiate conversation. He refused my offers of wine or whisky and went back up as soon as he’d finished. When I called after him, offering another expired Zopiclone, he didn’t reply.

Probably because of that and a mind full of other things, I didn’t sleep well. When I did finally get off, I woke up soon afterwards, trembling and sweating from a recurrent dream that hadn’t troubled me for some months. Hadn’t troubled me to the extent that I’d made the foolish assumption I was over it for good.

But no, the dream was back with its full, terrifying power. I’m seated, strapped in, one restraint tight across my stomach, the other diagonal, cutting a sharp line between my breasts. Even though I’ve had the dream so many times, I always start in ignorance. I don’t know where I am or why I’m there. That only adds to the horror.