‘Yes, thank goodness. Thank you so much.’ I almost didn’t want to ask why she’d been around. I had a horrible feeling it had been to see me and have an awkward Jai-related conversation. ‘I should get going. We’ll need a statement from you, but we can deal with that later.’

We reached my road and I eyed my car. While I was very grateful to Suki, I wanted to be in it and on my way to work.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You must be in shock. You should have a drink and a sit-down before you drive. Or I could drive you to the station. It’s no bother.’

‘No. Honestly. I’m fine.’ I leaned against the hot metal of my car.

‘Actually, I did want a quick word,’ Suki said.

‘It’s not the best—’

‘I know how close you are to Jai.’

‘We’re not especially close. We just work together.’ I absolutely did not need this.

‘He thinks I don’t like his kids.’

A sinking in my gut. ‘Listen, Suki, I know nothing about kids. I mean, Jai’s kids probably are pretty annoying. I don’t blame you if you don’t like them that much.’

‘Would you tell him? Tell him he’s got it wrong? I do like them.’

I wanted to be alone. In my car. Driving to the station. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I will. I’ll tell him you like his kids.’

I’d been through multiple layers of bureaucracy in relation to my incident with Justice for Violet, repeating my story so many times it now felt bigger in my mind, more important, more scary than it had at the time. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t a huge deal. That they’d never meant to hurt me. But the emotional part of my brain – the ancient lizard part – wasn’t convinced. And now to top it all, DCI Richard Atkins wanted to see me.

I found him at his desk, looking like he’d dressed in clothes fished out of his suitcase. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Not feeling my best. Couldn’t sleep on the plane. Bloke on my left snored like a buffalo. You can sit—’ He waved towards his guest chair. ‘Oh.’

Someone had put a sign on it. Condemned.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ Richard said. ‘What’s wrong with the chair?’

Did he really not know? The chair was notorious. Only the youngest and fittest in the force could get out of it unaided.

‘It’s like a chair version of Charybdis,’ I said. ‘Sucking the unwary to their deaths. I’m fine standing anyway.’

‘Are you all right?’ he said.

‘I’m fine. Absolutely fine. They didn’t hurt me. It was all very silly. Unfortunately I didn’t see any faces, but we might have got a hit on CCTV, you never know.’