Now it was afternoon, and the remnants of a huge fry-up lay all over my table. Jeremy had got up and gone to the shop, the very Co-op where Anna had so publicly confronted me. No doubt Audrey had seen this new strange man at my house and was feeding all the juicy details to the neighbourhood gossips right this second. He was very quiet, and I knew he was upset about Alex, but didn’t want to broach the subject.

In a different time, I might have gone to Amsterdam to meet this Jochem, the internet wizard, but since the police had given me bail conditions, Jeremy arranged for us to Skype him instead. He’d set up his laptop on the coffee table and got me some kind of ‘dongle’ for Wi-Fi. Now Jeremy was tapping on his laptop, adjusting the sound levels.

‘The network round here is Stone Age,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s practically at dial-up speeds.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go online anyway.’

‘You’ll need to set up email as well, so Jochem can get in touch. I mean, how do you manage without email? It’s 2019! Oh, here he is.’ The screen had darkened and the words Jochem calling appeared. Jeremy clicked. ‘Hi, Jochem! Can you hear me?’

The sounds of scuffling and a dark screen. ‘Turn your camera on, Jochem! That’s it . . . no . . . you’ve gone again.’ If this was the modern world, I wasn’t fussed. Eventually, Jochem Groeneveld appeared, and I could see Jeremy and myself in a small box at the bottom of the screen. Was I really so pale and wan? I fidgeted with my hair, which looked twice its normal size, and not in a good way. Jochem was in fact a bit wizard-like, with a long grey beard under dark hair and glasses. Despite the grey, I thought he was no more than fifty.

‘Hello, Jeremy?’ His Dutch accent made it sound more like Yeremy.

‘Hi! I’m here with Ca— er, with my friend.’ I waved awkwardly at the screen.

‘It is indeed an honour to meet you. Do you prefer to be called Rachel?’ So he knew my new identity.

‘Um – yes, please.’ I shot a look at Jeremy. ‘I need to stay in the habit of it.’

‘Good, good. So you wanted my help? There has been another murder?’

‘Yes, my – well, my boyfriend’s ex-wife has been killed and I’m a suspect.’ I saw Jeremy wince slightly at the word boyfriend. ‘I didn’t do it, of course. I think maybe I’m being framed.’ I explained quickly about the scarf and my old name spelt out on my fridge. ‘So you see, someone must know who I am.’