There was a silence while I took in the implications of this. Then, very gently, I said to Phil Dickie, ‘Look, I’m sure you don’t want to be taken back to that moment, but would you mind telling me exactly what happened when the car bomb detonated?’

He rubbed a hand hard against his forehead, as if he could somehow erase the memory. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should be over this now. We are talking more than thirty years ago.’

‘If you’d rather not talk about it …’ I offered him an exit, hoping to God he wouldn’t take it.

Fortunately, he didn’t. But even the thought of that time brought a glisten of sweat to his forehead. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.

‘The moment the bomb went off, you were standing facing Ingrid, about to film her piece to camera – right?’

He nodded.

‘Then – what? The blast knocked you over.’

‘Yes, sent me smashing forwards. Fortunately, I was too far away actually to fall on to Ingrid. But, as I went down, I saw the shrapnel hit her forehead, saw this fountain of blood come spurting out. She fell like a stone. I was worried she was dead.’

‘So, you were still conscious at this point?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think Ingrid was?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see anything else before you passed out?’

‘Yes. There were people rushing around, though I heard them rather than saw them. People running away from the site of the bomb, people coming to help the victims. Total chaos.’

‘Nobody came to help you?’

‘Not then, no.’

‘So, what did you see?’

He seemed about to say something, then checked himself. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered slowly. ‘Like I say, it was all confusion. I remember my last thought before passing out was – seeing the amount of blood she was covered in – that Ingrid was dead.’

‘I see.’

‘Mind you, I thought I was dead too,’ said Phil Dickie. His expression turned very grim. ‘Sometimes think it might have been better if I had been.’

TWENTY-TWO

I’d managed to find a parking space directly outside Phil Dickie’s studio and, when I got back into the Yeti, I checked my voicemail. There was a message from Alexandra Richards. I rang her.

‘Have the police been in touch with you?’ she asked immediately.

‘Not since you and I talked on Monday,’ I replied.

‘They’ve just been to see me.’

‘Ah. Unwin and Gupta again?’

‘Yes. They asked if I’d ever used sleeping pills.’

‘Really?’ To my mind, the detectives had been rather slow in getting to that question. ‘So, what did you say?’

‘Well, I couldn’t deny it. If they’d got a search warrant, they would have found packets of Zopiclone in my bathroom cabinet.’

‘I thought Walt had made you stop taking them?’

‘He keeps telling me to manage without them, and I am trying. But I like still to have a supply there, in case … you know.’