‘Only me and my dad. Oh, and Alex’s estate agent.’ I dried my tears fiercely and tried to drink the coffee Alex had brought me from the café across the road. I wanted to get the hell out of the flat as soon as possible, but I had to wait for Fox to finish his questions.

‘Estate agent?’ Fox crooked a sandy eyebrow.

‘It’s on the market with Costana and Mortimer.’ Alex looked shifty, towering over the smaller man. ‘But actually – the estate agent’s lost his keys, apparently. That’s why I called Maggie the other day.’

‘Lost them?’ The policeman frowned. ‘That’s not very professional, is it?’

‘Nothing to do with me, mate,’ Alex snapped.

‘I didn’t say it was, sir,’ Fox replied mildly.

‘He said they were in the office somewhere; they’d probably got mixed up with another set.’

‘So you don’t have keys any more yourself?’

‘No. I gave my last set back to Maggie, the others to Costana.’

‘Right. And what about you, Maggie?’

‘I’ve got a set, so has my dad. And there’s the set Alex gave me back. They’re in the bowl on the side.’

But they weren’t. The bowl my mother had made so many years ago was in tiny pieces, the phone ripped out of its socket, wires protruding like plastic guts. I felt like I’d been violated. I sipped my coffee miserably; it tasted as bitter and foul as I felt. ‘Can I go now? I’d really like to get out of here.’

DI Fox smiled patiently. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I’ll help you clean up.’ Sifting through the debris, Alex picked up a pair of frilly pink knickers he’d once much admired. The crotch had been completely ripped out. ‘Nice.’

‘Oh God.’ I stared at the flimsy bit of silk. ‘This is doing my head in.’

‘Can you leave everything alone, sir, please,’ Fox’s blonde Detective Sergeant interjected, ‘until the SOCOs have done their stuff.’

‘The SOCOs.’ Alex dropped the knickers back on the ground. ‘Right. Sorry.’

‘Have you seen the dog?’ I asked Alex.

‘No. Not since I got here.’

‘Can you go and call him?’ I said urgently, peering out of the window onto the street below.

Alex shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Just one minute, sir,’ Fox apprehended him. ‘I just wondered – you and Ms Warren are no longer an item, are you?’

‘No, we are no longer “an item”.’ Rudely, Alex mimicked Fox’s cockney accent. Fox drew himself up to his full height, which was still way below Alex.

‘So what were you doing here this morning?’ the policeman asked him in a neutral tone.

‘I’d come to get the keys. For the estate agent. And to pick up the rest of my stuff.’

‘And what stuff might that be?’ Fox glanced round.