“Not a dicky bird? I heard you, you know. The bodies in the library! I woke up and, of course it was dark and I was still pissed as a fart, head already thumping, longing for a glass of water and my bed, only there are these two people clearly banging the life out of one another. So I just lay there trying to work out who the hell it was. It didn’t sound like you. Although it didn’t sound much like him either. Very romantic, very touching. I must say it made me feel a bit lonely, and horny of course. Which is why, after you’d sloped off, I had the crazy idea of going off to find your friend Em. I had the notion that if I knocked on her door and told her, I don’t know, that I couldn’t sleep? That I was feeling a little sad? Well, I thought she might invite me in for a cuddle, or at least invite me in and let me lay out my sorrows, after which…”

“And did you?”

“I did, but as I told the police, she wasn’t there, or wasn’t answering. It wasn’t Rob’s night, I told myself. But then it wasn’t Em’s night either, was it? It sort of ruined things for everyone, didn’t it? Zack babbling about getting rid of his half a gram of coke before the police came, like that was the most important thing. He and Priss didn’t last. Alice was all right once she got clear. Sad little interlude, echoing down the years. Shame because it shouldn’t have ended like that. That game, the diamonds. Because it was beautiful, wasn’t it? I remember you running out over the ice and my heart just went with you. The wildest thing with your hair flying…”

For a moment Rob seemed lost in reverie. The waiter came and bore our plates away. After he was gone, Rob turned to me.

“I held her hand, you know, while we waited for the ambulance. And she was like a stopped clock. That laugh she had…” His eyes were wet, and he rubbed them with the back of a hand. “What really happened to her? To your friend Em?”

I realized it was the question I had been waiting for him to ask. Perhaps I had come here so Rob would ask precisely this question.

“She fell?” I said.

“Really, do you think so?”

“Why would anyone hurt her?”

“And yet, Peter goes missing and you’re here asking questions about something that happened nearly twenty years ago.”

“The telephone box. And he said he’d seen David.”

“Tenuous, Andy. Very tenuous. Have you ever thought it was you they were after?”