‘I’m only trying to find who murdered Anna,’ I muttered, looking round the room and noticing how close the walls seemed. My brain was screaming at me to run now, head for the hills, but I couldn’t. I was under arrest, and could not leave this place until they said so or the clock ran out. ‘We’re on the same team.’

‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ she said. ‘We don’t generally encourage amateur sleuthing, whatever Midsomer Murders would have you believe.’ DC Bakshi gave a small, appreciative chuckle. She went on. ‘You’ve been conducting your own side investigations. You met with witnesses Don Samson and Alison Harper – and you knew about them because you broke into Anna Devine’s house and searched it.’

How did they know about that? For a second I couldn’t think what to say. ‘Someone saw me?’

She sniffed. ‘We’re not required to give you that information.’

‘I didn’t break in as such. There was a key.’

She raised her eyebrows at that and made another note. ‘Well, thanks for clarifying, Rachel. You realise you’ve contaminated a possible crime scene, and put your DNA all over it.’

‘You already searched it all, though, yes? Did the forensics?’

She gave a tiny sigh. ‘Can you explain your behaviour for us, Rachel? Because I certainly can’t.’

‘Well. I think so.’ I hadn’t told them about Alex possibly bringing Sam to the farmhouse that night. Part of me still hoped Don had made a mistake. He was old, his ears must be shot from years of using noisy machinery. I couldn’t just sell him down the river – anyway, maybe they already knew. ‘Look, I didn’t do this. But it’s being made to look like I did – the scarf, even where the body was left, on my usual morning route. And I told you about the letters on my fridge. Even the fact of my identity coming out in the press – it’s someone who knows me from before, it must be. That picture at Disneyland. I’ve never even seen the original before. It could only have come from the Safran house.’

‘This comes back to your thesis that someone is framing you.’

‘Yes. I know how it sounds.’

Another raise of the eyebrows. She glanced at the other officer, who cleared his throat and said, ‘Rachel. Do you own any knives? Sharp ones?’

I blinked. ‘Well, I mean – doesn’t everyone? I have one sharp one.’

‘Do you cook much?’

‘Not if it’s just me.’

I became quite good at cooking in LA, catering for entire dinner parties, but it had been ruined for me, like so much else. Cooking for Alex in recent months, I had begun to enjoy it again – romantic dinners for two – but on the nights when he didn’t come over I rarely bothered, just made a salad or some pasta, sometimes eating straight from the saucepan.