He had the good grace to look a little abashed. ‘She’s going to be our expert.’

‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

I looked at Donna; at how desperate she was to salvage the programme, the doomed Dumped show, and I realised that I really had to do what I should have done months ago. I felt Charlie watching me. ‘I’m going to go, Charlie.’

‘Donna, go and meet Fay’s cab,’ he said.

‘Okay, boss.’ She rushed off.

‘Maggie, I need you,’ he implored. ‘You have to get this off the ground.’

We stared at each other.

‘You owe me this much. After everything –’

‘I owe you nothing,’ I hissed. ‘And you damn well know it. There’s nothing left to give, anyway.’

Sally appeared with our first guest. We smiled our disingenuous smiles before Charlie grabbed my arm and forced me into the corridor.

‘Was that true about Joseph Blake?’

I nodded grimly.

‘What exactly has he done?’

‘Ow!’ I shook him off. ‘That hurts. He mounted a one-man campaign of terror against me, that’s what.’

‘Really?’ Charlie frowned at me as I rubbed my arm crossly.

‘Yes, really. That break-in, various nasty texts, funeral flowers, missing things, it was all him apparently.’

A spotty young researcher called Cheryl came panting down the hall. ‘Maggie, your dad’s been on the phone. He says have you got the dog?’

My stomach hit the floor. ‘What?’

‘He said two things –’ She was painstaking in her thoroughness as she tried to remember exactly what she’d been told.

‘He said – one,’ she ticked it off on her fingers, ‘more flowers have arrived for you at his house. And two, he said have you got the dog?’

I stared at her, uncomprehending. Not daring to comprehend.

‘Sorry.’ Cheryl looked really worried. ‘He said you’d understand.’

The show was due on air in twenty-five minutes when I found DI Fox’s number and rang him from an empty dressing-room. He sounded uncomfortable.

‘Maggie. I was about to ring you actually.’

I felt a sudden tightness in my throat.

‘Why?’

‘I’m sorry, but we’re just about to release Blake.’

I leaned my burning head on the dressing-table.

‘Maggie? You still there?’

‘Just about,’ I muttered.

‘I thought you should know. There’s just not enough evidence to tie him to the first break-in, I’m afraid. Not a single fingerprint, nothing. Nada.’

‘Are you sure? And he has – he’s been in jail all night?’

‘He’s been in custody, yeah. And he swears you gave him the keys to fetch your bag from the flat. We can’t charge him.’

‘Well, he’s lying,’ I said, thinking fast. ‘Could he have made any phone calls? Like to order more flowers? He couldn’t have nicked my – my dog?’

‘Your dog?’