Conor was breathing faster, nostrils flaring. “Computer?”

I said, “Let’s skip the part where you play dumb. It’s boring, it’s pointless and it puts me in a very fucking bad mood.” I gave the evidence bag a vicious bounce off the wall. “That OK with you?”

He kept his mouth shut. Richie said, “So let’s go again, yeah? Something changed, to make you leave that yoke for Jenny.” I waved the bag at Conor, between throws. “It was Pat, wasn’t it? He was getting worse.”

“If you already know, what are you asking me for?”

Richie said easily, “Standard procedure, man. We’re just checking that your story matches up with what we’ve got from other sources. If it all fits, then happy days, we believe you. If you’re telling us one thing and the evidence is telling us another …” He shrugged. “Then we’ve got a problem, and we’ve got to keep digging till we sort it. You get me?”

After a moment Conor said, “OK. Pat was getting worse. He wasn’t mental, not yelling at this animal to come out and fight, nothing like that. He was just having a tough time. OK?”

“But something must’ve happened. Something made you get in touch with Jenny, all of a sudden.”

Conor said simply, “She just looked so lonely. Pat hadn’t said a word to her in, like, two days—not that I saw. He was spending all his time sitting at the kitchen table with those monitors lined up in front of him, just staring. She’d tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he didn’t even look up. Wasn’t like they’d been catching up at night, either: the night before, he’d slept in the kitchen, on that beanbag.”

Conor had been up in that hide practically 24/7, by the end. I stopped playing with the evidence bag and stood still, behind him.

“Jenny … I saw her in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. Leaning her hands on the countertop, like she was too wrecked to stand up. Staring at nothing. Jack was pulling at her leg, trying to show her something; she didn’t even notice. She looked forty; more. Lost. I almost jumped straight down out of that house, straight over the wall, to put my arms around her.”

I said, keeping it expressionless, “So you decided what she really needed, at this difficult time in her life, was to find out she had a stalker.”

“I was just trying to help. I thought about calling in, or ringing up, or e-mailing her, but Jenny …” He shook his head heavily. “When things aren’t great, she doesn’t want to talk about it. She wouldn’t’ve wanted a chat, not with Pat all … So I just thought: something to let her know I was there. I went home and got the badge. Maybe I called it wrong. Sue me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I asked, “At what time, exactly?”

“What?”

“When did you leave this in the Spains’ house?”