My letter. How do they have my letter? And then I remember: the belongings that Seb stored in his loft. This must have been part of the stuff that was taken. And then I think of the money and the thought passes through my mind that they might have taken the dollars. But Seb was sure they didn’t.

‘Officer, I gather this was taken in the course of a search without a proper warrant,’ Jan says.

‘We can argue about that later, Miss Cullen. For now, let me just ask you, Mr Shute, if you recognise the letter?’

‘No comment,’ I say, fighting against the urge to explain.

‘I’m just going to read it out. It’s got a date written on it: November 2nd 1989. My dear Xander, it says. I am not sure whether I am going to send this letter to you or whether it’s going to join the others I’ve started and crushed into balls. I want you to know I never meant to hurt you even though all we seem to end up doing is hurting each other over and over again. This time—’

I am whipped back three decades. I don’t remember the letter and what it said but I remember everything else. What I wore then – an old tweed jacket from a second-hand shop. Which brand of cigarettes I smoked – Consulate. I remember the colour of the walls in the room in which I read it – apple-white. I remember the twisting feeling in my gut. The hopelessness.

‘Stop,’ I say. ‘Yes. I knew her. We were in a relationship.’

Jan is angry but more at Conway than me.

‘By the looks of this letter, your relationship ended at her choice, so to speak,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I say, my jaw tightening.

‘How did you feel about that?’ he asks.

‘I’m going to repeat my advice, Mr Shute.’

‘It’s okay, Jan. I felt how anyone would feel. I loved her. I didn’t want it to end. But it was beyond my control.’ I am articulating something I haven’t had a chance to become familiar with yet.

‘That’s an interesting phrase you’ve used though, Mr Shute, isn’t it?’

‘Is that a question?’ Jan says. She is shifting in her seat. Coiled.

‘It will be, Miss. You see we also found these at your bail address, Mr Shute. At the bottom of a cardboard box we lifted from the loft. Is that your handwriting? For the benefit of the tape, I am showing the suspect exhibit RG/11, a letter without a date on it.’

I look at what he is showing me. It is still in a plastic police bag but I can make out the writing easily enough. It is my writing, or was.

‘No comment,’ I say.