Cue serious faces all round, one batting of eyelids and several lost little headshakes. Poor kid, poor poor Rhianna.

‘Studies have shown that children with weak or dispassionate relationships with their mothers often lapse into patterns of violent crime—’

He’s talking like a criminology YouTuber. I’m briefly impressed.

‘—or you could surmise that she was just a bad seed.’

‘Amen,’ says Old Lady Chunky Blue Heels.

A woman with a beaky nose and Pot Noodle perm gets the roving mic. ‘Did you get to interview her sister? Do you know how she feels about it all?’

‘No, she wouldn’t talk to me,’ says Freddie. ‘She wanted no part in this story. Which is ironic when you consider her role in it.’

Another Texan throwback pipes up. ‘I read that most serial killers don’t just stop killing – that there may be a cooling-off period but that they never stop because it is a predilection which cannot ever be curbed or rehabilitated. Now what I want to know and what you might be able to tell me, sir—’

There’s always one. It’s as certain as the scrawny autistic kid will win Countdown – the guy who takes as long as he pleases to ask a question.

‘—in your opinion do you think she carried on killing people after she left the UK, sir? Because we don’t know anything about what she did after killing that woman at the farm shop up until the point she—’

Freddie butts in. ‘Yes, I do. I do think she carried on killing.’

The lesser-known Carry On film.

‘Rhiannon Lewis is a killer. That’s what she did, that’s what she enjoyed. I’ve spoken to a number of criminal psychologists while working on the book, and they’re all in agreement: there is no way she stopped after Sandra Huggins. She got better at hiding it, that’s all. And herself.’

Another arm shoots up. Guy with big cheeks and a stained Jeffrey Dahmer T-shirt gets the mic. His hand’s been up a while. He’d cream his jeans if he knew I was in the room.

‘Why d’you think Rhian left her story for you to tell, Mr Litton-Cheney?’

‘I think I got lucky,’ he replies. ‘If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. Maybe at the newspaper office where she used to work.’

Mmm, no, he has me wrong there. I wouldn’t piss on anyone in that office if they were thirsty, let alone give them the scoop of the century.

Woman in yellow coat with too-red lipstick and smokers’ mouth creases shoots up a hand. ‘I didn’t appreciate all the cursing in the book,’ she complains. ‘Was that your input or hers? Some of it was quite disgusting.’

‘It’s all hers,’ Freddie smiles ruefully.

‘Why does she have such a filthy mouth?’ the old bint quacks on.