“So, you and Megan weren’t close?” DCI Rosenmeyer—I can’t think of him as “Jimmy”—asks.

“Not at all,” I reply. “We hadn’t really spoken in years. I wasn’t invited to the wedding, she never introduced me to her husband.”

“You didn’t know who he was when he kidnapped you?” DS Fonteyn (she’s asked me to call her Vicky) pipes up.

“Well…” I pick at my nails—easy when my DIY French manicure is so chipped—and take a few moments before I answer. “The thing is, I did know him. I just didn’t know who he was. In relation to Megan, I mean.” They both look confused. “I met Chris in the bar of a hotel about a year ago,” I go on. “He told me he was there for a meeting. That he was single. I don’t think I need to elaborate.”

“You spent the night with him?” Vicky looks wide-eyed, as if I am a friend recounting a particularly scandalous liaison. Which I kind of am, and I need her to continue to think of me like that.

“I didn’t know who he was. I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time. We spent a couple of nights together. Continued to see each other after that. But it wasn’t a relationship or anything. More of a… err…” I think of something shameful from my real past—the time I went swimming in a bikini I hadn’t realized was totally see-through when wet—and feel the bloom of a blush light up my cheeks. “Well, more of a physical thing. Dating is so tough these days…” I implore Vicky, who sneaks a peek at DCI Rosenmeyer, confirming my suspicions and revealing that, yes, she also thinks this dating lark is rather hard.

“When did you find out who he was?”

“He… he…” My voice breaks as I force the tears to well. “He turned up on my doorstep on the night we went into lockdown. I thought he just wanted a… well, you know…”

“Booty-call?” offers DCI Rosenmeyer. Vicky shoots him a glare. Booty-calls are obviously a bone of contention in whatever their relationship is.

“Yeah. But… I was seeing someone by then. Someone I had come to really like.”

“Tom Eagleton?”

“Yes. So, when Chris came to the door, I invited him in. Just so there could be no weird argument in the street. You know, nosey neighbors and all that.”

“You let him into your house?”

“Of course. We’d had a thing. I thought he just wanted a final fling before he went home and locked down for however long it was going to be. I made him tea and was going to let him down gently, tell him to go home. Then I was going to ring Tom and see if it wouldn’t have been too forward to ask him to come and lock down with me.”

“And then what happened?” I fear I am losing DCI Rosenmeyer’s interest.

“Then he knocked me unconscious and the next thing I knew I was waking up in his house and he was calling me Megan.”