It may harm your defence if you fail to mention. I don’t remember this from TV. It is new.

Their eyes flit between one another and me. They are telegraphing something to each other but I don’t know what. The tension gets too much and I find myself speaking before I can stop myself.

‘Okay then. Say it. He’s dead. I know what murder means.’

They look at me, their brows creased. They exchange looks once again.

‘So why am I here? Is there new evidence?’ I say, searching them both.

Blake looks at Conway with realisation. It’s just the slightest of looks. A millimetre by which she raises her green eyes at him. His face, weighed down by age and this no doubt, doesn’t move.

Blake is the one who speaks. ‘Xander. Mr Shute. About Mr Squire. We got the blood results back from the lab. It’s not his blood on the knife.’

‘What?’ I say. I don’t believe it.

‘We conducted a video ID procedure and he was unable to pick out his assailant. That’s not to say it wasn’t you. It’s just, well. We’re going to NFA it,’ Conway says.

‘NFA?’ I hear myself say, but I am flooded with relief.

‘It means “no further action”. But, as DI Conway has said, if further evidence comes to light, you could be rearrested for it,’ Blake says.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Then why am I here?’

‘Murder, Mr Shute.’

‘What?’ I say, confused. ‘I don’t understand. You said he’s fine.’ I look wildly between the two. ‘Unless. There’s another murd—’ The rest of the word catches in my throat. My heart begins to pound in my chest.

‘Mr Shute. Are you okay? You look a bit pale,’ Blake says.

Although I am shaking, I nod.

‘I’m going to remind you of your right to a solicitor,’ she says. I think of the solicitor from last time. The one I kicked out. What was her name? My heart races.

‘No. Don’t need a solicitor,’ I say.

‘Okay. Following investigations into the allegations you made—’

Allegations I made? I don’t understand what she means.

‘We have uncovered certain further evidence. And we have to hand it to you, Mr Shute.’

‘Hand what to me? And what allegations?’

‘Number 42B,’ Conway says, stabbing a pen in my direction. ‘The murder you told us about.’

My heart is banging. I am not sure what is happening but it is happening at a speed I cannot match.

‘You – found the body?’

‘Not exactly, Mr Shute. The body was never lost,’ Conway says. ‘It was recovered immediately after the murder.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Immediately? Where is it, then? What’s happening? And why haven’t you caught him? You know where he is. You know who he is.’

My voice is too loud but I cannot calm it or the convulsions in my head.