‘Of course not.’ She kicked a loose stone and sent it skittering all the way past Christine’s mini-roses to the pavement. The houses across the street looked back unimpressed.

‘So …?’

‘You asked me to tell you something that proves Josh didn’t do it. I’m trying.’

‘Robin.’

‘You can’t tell me anything, I know that, but I can tell you. Ana, their babysitter – she’s nervous. Why? And if Josh basically didn’t have a job any more, why did they even need a babysitter? If they were getting by on Corinna’s salary, how were they paying her? I know they paid her in cash but where were they getting that? It must have been a couple of hundred a month at least, and—’

‘Hold on, hold on. Just stop a minute.’ When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. Was he at work? ‘We’re on the same side here.’

‘Are we?’

‘I understand where you’re coming from, I do, but …’

‘What’s Ana frightened of, Samir? Because she is. Both times I’ve talked to her – when I went there, she was afraid to open the door. Why, if it was a domestic?’

‘She saw something? She’s a witness?’

Robin said nothing.

‘Okay, look,’ he said. ‘She’s nervous because she’s here illegally. In the UK, I mean.’

‘How? She’s Slovakian – we’re not out of the EU just yet.’

‘She’s not Slovakian, she’s from Serbia, which, as you’ll know, has never been in the EU.’

Oh. ‘She told Rin she was Slovakian.’

‘I know, she said. But she was lying, for obvious reasons. She’s scared now because she doesn’t want to get removed. That also tells you why they were paying her in cash, by the way.’

‘Why but not how. Where were they getting the money? How about the loan against the machines – have you got anywhere on that?’

‘How do you know about that?’

Robin considered obfuscating but decided against. ‘Kath.’

‘You spoke to her, too?’

‘She’s a friend.’

A pause long enough to let her know he didn’t accept that. He knew how she’d felt about Kath back in the day. ‘Well, obviously,’ he said, ‘she told us about it as well, and Webster’s team have been looking into it.’ He hesitated and in the background at his end, she heard a distant scream, not fear but excitement – a kid’s scream, part of a game, the exhilaration of being chased, nearly caught. Was he in a playground? Or at home? If he was on his own phone, he either had it set to withhold his number automatically or he’d done it specially for her.

‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Don’t involve yourself. You’ve got too much to lose.’

News to me.

‘If word reaches the Met, you’ll screw up any chance of an appeal.’

‘How do you know about that?’ Ha.