‘Yes.’

‘Unwin and Gupta took the Zopiclone. They put the packets in an evidence bag.’

‘Ah.’

‘That doesn’t sound good, does it?’

‘I’m not sure. It depends on what they think the Zopiclone would be evidence of.’ I may have sounded a bit dense, but I didn’t want to push Alexandra into saying anything that she wasn’t ready to volunteer.

‘There’s only one thing they could be thinking,’ she said quite logically. ‘That the Zopiclone ground up in Ingrid’s whiskey had come from this house.’

I was glad she had said it rather than me.

‘But Unwin and Gupta,’ I asked, ‘didn’t talk about anyone being charged with murder, did they?’

‘No. They didn’t talk about it, but surely the implication was there, wasn’t it?

I was glad she’d taken the implication on board. Alexandra Richards was naïve, but she wasn’t that naïve.

‘Oh, I wish Walt was here.’ There was a note of desperation in her voice. ‘He’d know what I should do.’

‘Where is he?’ I asked, remembering I’d left a message for him to call me.

‘He’s out on a call, fixing someone’s laptop in St Leonards. Oh, life is sometimes very difficult, isn’t it, Ellen?’

I wasn’t about to argue with that, but I wondered where the question was leading.

‘You know,’ she went on, ‘when you have to keep secrets because you love someone.’

‘You mean when that someone has asked you to keep something secret?’

‘Yes. Exactly that.’

I could imagine quite a few things that Walt might have asked her to keep secret but, though I asked her very directly, Alexandra wouldn’t tell me any more.

Before we finished the conversation, I did say – sounding rather pious, I’m afraid, ‘All I would advise is that you don’t start lying to the police. That’s only going to create trouble for you.’

‘I know,’ she said miserably.

No sooner had I switched my mobile off than it rang. Synchronicity. Walt returning my call.

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ He sounded as cocky as ever and I was amazed how quickly my dislike for him could be reignited.

‘I wanted to talk about the night Ingrid Richards died.’

‘Oh yes?’ He didn’t sound surprised. ‘Have you talked to Ally about it?’

‘I have.’

‘So, you know I was in Brunswick Square that night?’

‘Yes. But I don’t know why you were.’

‘Ah. Well, you know Ally and me are, like, “an item”?’

I could visualize him putting mimed quotation marks round the words. Suppressing an inward ‘Yuck’, I replied, ‘Yes, I had pieced that together. You’ve mentioned it enough times.’

He didn’t seem aware of the edge on my remark, as he went on, ‘I have discovered, over the years, Ellen, that what’s really important in a relationship’ – oh yes, like you’re the guru of relationships – ‘is complete honesty. No secrets from each other.’

Why, when I would have agreed completely with the principle put forward by someone else, did I feel so inclined to disagree with Walt Rainbird voicing it? I restrained the instinct.