‘I managed to kick the door open,’ he continues, ‘and pretty much fell out of the car. I made it about ten metres away before the whole thing caught fire.’ The warmth of the flames on his body, the feeling of the hairs on his arms singeing in the heat.

‘And Stevens?’ Freya asks.

He sits up now, pulling his hands down his face, wiping the tears away from his eyes. Freya gets up and fetches a tissue and he smiles weakly at her.

‘I think he was already dead. But I didn’t wait to find out. I could barely see from the airbag. My body was in agony. I managed to get across the road, through the hedge, to the field. I think I passed out there, too, because when I woke I could hear the sirens from the fire engine.’

Freya clamps her hand to her mouth. ‘I remember now,’ she says. ‘We weren’t working together but the gossip from the station. You were off for two days, and when you came back you had a broken arm, broken ribs.’

‘Broken collarbone, severe whiplash. I made it home, lay low until the morning and then went to the hospital.’

‘You said you’d fallen down your stairs.’

‘They believed me. Everyone believed me. What was the alternative? That I’d killed someone? Baker took me aside when I was back at work and said that Stevens had died, and that’s when I knew.’

‘They didn’t think anyone else had been in the car,’ she finishes for him.

Robin nods. He watches her. She sits silently, taking in everything he’s told her. But he’s left out the biggest secret. That before he dragged himself off to the field, he’d stood, watching. He’d seen Stevens start to move, shifting in the driver’s seat, regaining consciousness and realising he was trapped. He’d watched as the man’s movements got more frantic, as panic set in. And he’d done nothing as the car caught fire.

He’d stood, listening to his screams, watching the man burn.

He takes another swallow from the wine in front of him. A drop misses and falls on the table, and he puts a shaking finger into it, swirling it around in frenetic loops on the polished oak.

‘Do you want me to go to the station and hand myself in?’ Robin asks.

‘No.’ Freya says it quickly, and he looks at her in surprise. She shakes her head, her eyes shut for a moment. Then she opens them again, and reaches across, taking his hands in hers.

The contact feels strange. Too intimate between sergeant and subordinate, but Robin knows they’ve crossed that line tonight.

‘No,’ she says again. ‘I want you to find Jonathan’s killer.’

51