‘There was a plastic bag in the car and I wrapped it up. I had some wipes in the glove compartment. I wiped my hands before I touched the keys, the steering wheel. I didn’t want any traces of blood in the car. I stopped at one of the motorway service stations … I don’t remember which one … took the bag into the toilet. It was late by then, there was no one around. I washed it in the sink and rubbed it dry, polished off all the prints and wrapped it up again. Later on in the journey, I stopped on a bridge over a stream and threw the thing in the water, watched it sink. There’d been a pile-up on the motorway, long queues, people had been stuck in traffic for hours. It had all cleared by the time I drove back, but it meant that no one questioned why it took me so long to reach Nottingham … not Carrie, not the police. Carrie had been in bed for hours. As soon as I got in, I stripped off and put everything I’d been wearing in the washing machine. Next day I ditched my shoes.’ He let out his breath in a deep sigh. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’

A tear glistened on his cheek and I wiped it gently with my thumb. ‘Of course you didn’t.’ I was near to tears myself.

‘I’m sorry that you had to find him like that,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘It must have been terrible for you.’

I didn’t say anything. Just at that moment I couldn’t speak.

‘I never wanted to hurt you, Juno,’ he went on. ‘That morning in Nick’s kitchen … I was coming to see you in the shop. You were just leaving − you went to get your paint, remember? I called out but you didn’t hear me. I saw you didn’t lock the door. So I let myself in and had a good look around. I thought it was my last chance to find the netsuke. Then, you came back …’

‘You decided to creep up on me with ether.’

‘I panicked.’ He hung his head like a guilty schoolboy. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ I enfolded him in a hug and we clung together for a while. He made no noise but I could feel sobs racking his body, deep in his chest. I let him sob. After a few minutes, he found his voice again.

‘It feels good,’ he whispered into my hair, ‘to have told someone at last.’

‘Do you want me to come with you, to the police?’ I asked.

He drew back his head to look at me. In his dark eyes there was a blank stare of utter incomprehension. ‘What?’ he asked softly.

‘We can talk to Inspector Ford.’

He gazed at me, mystified. ‘I can’t go to prison. Juno … surely you understand? Carrie … the children …’