“I didn’t know, Adam. I didn’t know about any of this, I swear.”

At least now he knows how Oscar got his number. “Tell me,” he says.

Sally-Ann swallows. “We were at school together. I hadn’t seen him for years, and then we bumped into each other out clubbing one night. We got talking and he seemed different to how he used to be. Not like when we were at school, all full of himself and throwing dirt in your hair in the playground—”

“Sally-Ann.”

“Sorry. So he took me for a drink one night, old friends catching up sort of thing, and then he told me he was . . . well, that he was exploring his sexuality. It wasn’t long after I’d met you, and I thought, you know who might be good for each other?”

The bus pulls away, covering them in a blanket of dark fumes.

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“You’d have gone along with that, would you? A blind date? Come off it, Adam. You’re a nice guy, mostly. You’re intelligent, and you look great, but, well, you’re not exactly sociable. So I gave him the hard sell and convinced him it might be better if you met sort of spontaneously.”

“The pub. He chatted me up at the bar while you watched.”

“I’m sorry, it seemed harmless enough.”

“So he knew I was with the police? That I was in CID?”

Sally-Ann looks away, and he has his answer.

“I didn’t think it at the time, but looking back I think he might have been angling for me to set him up with someone. Not you specifically but . . . he was really interested in my job. I told him what I did, working in the comms room, and he asked loads of questions about CID.”

“He asked you about CID specifically?”

Sally-Ann thinks about it. “Well, no, not exactly, but he kept coming back to the same thing, did I know anyone involved in the juicy stuff, drugs, murder? It was just one of those conversations you have in the pub, you know?”

He thinks he’s beginning to.

“But I’ve been thinking about the night I first met him. It was when I told him I worked for the police that he started to get more interested. I remember because it’s weird; most people run a mile when you tell them you work for the cops, but if anything I got the impression he was flirting with me. He asked me out, and when we went on our ‘date,’ and I made it clear I wasn’t interested in him, that’s when he suddenly came out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this . . . ?” He stops. He’s been a fool. “Last night, you set that up, too. That’s why you were so adamant I go.”