Sophie Denham answers without looking at her, still talking to Tyler. “We don’t live together or anything. I’m in a student house, and Oscar has his own place in town. He stays over sometimes.”

“I see,” he says. And he thinks he does. He sees them together, this perfect couple with their perfectly skinny waists and perfectly coiffured hair. He sees Oscar’s thick lips pressed against her pale breasts.

She misinterprets his silence. “We’re not one of those couples who have to be in each other’s pockets all the time.”

“But you saw him last night?”

She nods. “We had dinner. He stayed all night.”

She sounds as though she’s providing Oscar with an alibi, but he can’t think of a reason why Oscar would need one for last night.

Rabbani takes over again. “How long have you been seeing each other?”

“I thought I just said, we were at school together.” Her voice is so much cooler when talking to Rabbani. He wonders at first if it’s a race thing. If it is, he’ll find a reason to take her in.

“You’ve been dating all that time?” Rabbani’s voice is cool as well. What was said while he was away? Not a race thing; a woman thing then?

“It’s complicated,” Denham says. “And personal.” She puts down her cup. A little of the pale tea spills onto the table. Tyler passes her a napkin. She mops at the spillage, caught between the invasiveness of Rabbani’s questioning and the small kindness of his gesture. Good cop, bad cop. Perhaps they make a good team.

Denham lets out a small sigh. “Oscar’s a bit of a free spirit,” she says, still talking to him rather than Rabbani. “He comes and goes.” She hesitates for the briefest moment. “I know he sees other women. That’s fine. I have my studies anyway.” She blushes again, recognizing how all this must sound to them. “It works for us,” she adds defiantly. He suddenly sees her vulnerability; she’s a child playing at an adult relationship. She knows what Oscar gets up to, but she chooses to ignore it. She’s convinced herself this is what she wants as well. He corrects the thought: she knows some of what Oscar gets up to.

His mobile rings. He glances at the screen as it flashes the identity of the caller at him. He has the number stored in his phone only because he thought to copy it from a witness statement last night. Just in case. He should hit the call-cancel button. That would be the sensible thing to do. Instead he excuses himself, stands, and looks directly into Sophie Denham’s bright eyes. He smiles at her and leaves the table, answering the phone as he wanders to the window. “DS Tyler.”

“Hi,” Oscar says. “It’s me.”