‘And before you say anything else, I’m going back to the airport tomorrow and going on my holiday. I’ll send the bill for my rescheduled flight to your chief inspector.’ Red-faced, Jonathan sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘And we’ll see what my friends on social media have to say about that!’

‘About a possible suspect in a murder case trying to slip out of the country?’ Ian asked softly.

‘What? You can’t say that – I’m not a suspect in anything. You haven’t charged me with anything. I’m a free man. Innocent until proved guilty. Suggesting otherwise is slander. I don’t even know what I’m doing back here. What the hell do you want with me?’

‘You have to see that in trying to board a plane to Spain when we specifically asked you to remain in York means you’ve brought suspicion on yourself,’ Geraldine replied. ‘We are bound to question what you were doing, where you were going, and why you wanted to leave in such a hurry.’

‘I told you, I was going to Spain for a week, and I’ve already told you, I booked it months ago. I was going on holiday.’

‘So you say.’

‘You can see my ticket. I fly back after a week. Only now it’s going to be six days, isn’t it?’

Ian shook his head. ‘I’m afraid we can’t let you leave the country until this case is cleared up.’

‘You can’t stop me,’ Jonathan replied, but he didn’t sound very confident. He turned to his lawyer. ‘They can’t stop me, can they?’

‘I think you’ll find that in a murder investigation, within reason we can do whatever we deem necessary or appropriate,’ Geraldine said.

Jonathan shook his head angrily. ‘No, that’s not right. You had me here, you questioned me, you let me go, and that has to be the end of it. If you had anything on me, you wouldn’t have let me go in the first place.’

‘Things have changed slightly,’ Ian said.

‘How have they changed? What’s happened to make you suspect me that you didn’t know about before?’

‘Your attempt to leave the country,’ Ian replied drily. ‘You must see that looks suspicious.’

‘Oh for goodness sake,’ Jonathan snapped. ‘You’re saying if I hadn’t decided to go away you wouldn’t have brought me back here? So what difference would it have made if I was at home or in Spain, seeing as I wasn’t being questioned?’

Ian shrugged.