He is slight of build and a little below average height, with metal-framed glasses he probably doesn’t need and nondescript brown hair. He is wearing dark trousers, a white shirt, and a navy tie with white dots. You would not notice him in a crowd. He blends in like a serial killer.

‘Hello, Martin,’ I say.

‘Your message reached me. Well played. You certainly caught my attention.’ He waits, as if expecting me to thank him for the compliment. When I say nothing, he goes on. ‘I’d planned to talk to you today, but not quite so soon.’ He is looking at my bag. He smiles. ‘I will need to take the item you just placed in there.’

‘No.’ I lift my toes and begin to rock, then stop myself.

He looks stunned; clearly he isn’t used to hearing that word. ‘What?’

‘I need it.’

‘My preference would be for you and me to handle this alone.’

‘I don’t see how a folder of notes about a small child can be relevant to Jane’s death.’ I stare at him with a coolness that would make even Maxine proud.

‘Maxine didn’t want to play your final interview the way we did, you know. My playbook, not hers. I thought you’d hold up better, but Maxine predicted that little vulnerability of yours.’

I have always blamed Maxine for that interview in the white room with the glass table.

He goes on. ‘When we learned you were living with Hunter, she didn’t want to recruit you, said we’d messed your life up enough already. I forced the issue.’

I have always blamed Maxine for everything.

‘She was even more insistent on getting you out of there when she discovered you were pregnant.’

I have always thought he was for me, and she was not.

‘We needed you to copy his hard drive. She didn’t want you to, but once we learned about that micro SD card slipping through our fingers . . .’

I’d got it the wrong way round.

‘I pressed it, said you were tough, that it was what you’d wanted, that she wouldn’t be doing you a favour to cut you loose. Was I right?’

He is so casual. For two whole years I have hated Maxine for what happened, for putting me in that position and keeping me there. But it was never her. It was this man. Always, every step, it was him.

‘You were not right.’ I say this with a blankness I do not feel. Maxine’s gift.

‘That’s surprising. Well, I was sorry to hear how it played out for you.’

How many times has he used the word play? The expression played out? Playbook too. As if all this is a game to him.

He comes closer. ‘I’ll have that document wallet now, Holly.’

There is no choice but to take it from my bag and hold it out.