‘Good, good,’ I purred, but I wasn’t really listening. My gaze was trained on the house at the back again. Yes. As I thought, the windows were extremely visible now, but the study was different. More restricted. I went back in. I longed to crouch. See if an inert body on the floor, or even a fully functioning one, sitting on the sofa, hands clenched, could be seen. If from that position, I could see more of the windows. He followed me back, bemused. Not much rose admiring seemed to have taken place. I sat down suddenly on the sofa. Picked up a Chinese vase on the coffee table that wasn’t particularly pretty and peered at it intently. ‘Gosh, this is lovely!’

‘Thanks,’ he said, bewildered.

I bent a bit lower, as if I simply couldn’t study the Ming Dynasty, or even the Conran shop, unless I was low. Very low. My eyes shot up to the bedroom windows opposite. Yes, they were indeed even more visible, but it was so hard to tell if there was a proper line of sight, or if the top of the French windows precluded it. Susie Sharpe would know, but then again, she made a lot of it up. What I’d really like to do was go up to Ned’s old bedroom and have a look down. See how much I could see of their interior, but then we were only two stories: it was different. And there was no way I could pretend I’d left my purse in that room. The only way of telling would be to go round there, to that house, and somehow have a look.

‘I’ve taken up far too much of your time,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘You must be getting back to your work. Remind me what it is you lecture in?’

‘Criminology.’

The vase, still in my hands, slipped through my fingers and smashed on the coffee table. I gasped, horrified.

‘Oh God – I’m so sorry!’

‘No, don’t worry,’ he said, as I hastened to pick up the pieces. ‘It wasn’t anything special. Only an old Habitat thing and actually Agathe bought it so – oh Christ, now you’ve cut yourself.’ He sounded irritated, as well he might. This wretched, menopausal woman barging into his house, inspecting the roses for greenfly, peering round his study, picking up and breaking his possessions then bleeding on the glass coffee table. But criminology …

He was leading me, rather firmly, by the elbow, to the kitchen, and had run the tap, under which I obligingly held my finger while he rummaged around in a drawer for a plaster.

‘Isn’t that the study of … criminals?’

‘Ten out of ten. At its most simplistic level. Although, to be more precise, it’s the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control and consequences of criminal behaviour.’

‘Consequences. You mean … prison?’