Mallory looked up. His face was like stone, the eyes dark and full of menace. He said sharply and angrily, ‘I’m afraid you haven’t been telling the truth, young man. You’ve been wasting my time.’

The contrast between this and his earlier politeness was quite shattering and Harold started to shake involuntarily. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he stammered. ‘I’ve told you everything I can remember.’

‘Tell him the truth, son,’ Brady put in, worried and anxious. ‘It’ll go better with you in the long run.’

‘But I am telling him the bleeding truth,’ Harold cried. ‘What else does he want – blood? Here, I’m not having any more of this. I want to see a lawyer.’

‘Lie number one,’ Mallory said remorselessly. ‘You told us that you didn’t know the name of the man you’d had the argument with at The King’s Arms. The man who went off with Grace Packard.’

‘That’s right.’

‘The landlord remembers differently. He says that when you came back to the pub to take him up on his offer of a drink on the house, you already knew the name of the person concerned. What you’d really come back for was his address only the landlord wouldn’t play.’

‘It’s a lie,’ Harold said. ‘There isn’t a word of truth in it.’

‘He’s ready to repeat his statement under oath in the box,’ Brady said.

Mallory carried on as if he hadn’t heard. ‘You told us that you were home by half-nine, that you took your mother a cup of tea and then went to bed. Do you still stick to that story?’

‘You ask her – she’ll tell you. Go on, just ask her.’

‘We happen to know that your mother is a very sick woman and in severe pain most of the time. The pills the doctor gave to make her sleep needed to be much stronger than usual. Her dosage was two. We can prove she took three yesterday. Medical evidence would indicate that it would be most unlikely that you would have been able to waken her at the time you state.’

‘You can’t prove that,’ Harold sounded genuinely indignant.

‘Possibly not,’ Mallory admitted candidly, ‘but it won’t look good, will it?’

‘So what. You need evidence in a court of law – real evidence. Everybody knows that.’

‘Oh, we can supply some of that as well if you insist. You told us that after leaving The King’s Arms you didn’t see Grace Packard again, that you walked round the streets for a while, had a coffee at the station buffet and went home, arriving at half-nine.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you found time for something else, didn’t you?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You had intercourse with someone.’

Harold was momentarily stunned. When he spoke again he was obviously badly shaken. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’