‘I spoke to you,’ he said. ‘I spoke to you. Don’t you remember?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

‘I need to talk to you,’ the man said, and then suddenly he was crying in an awful, ugly way. She was revolted by him. Repulsed. And yet she also felt for him. She’d cried a lot over the last two days, and she didn’t want him to feel as bad as she’d felt.

And then she realised who he must be, and she stopped trying to push the door closed. ‘You’re Alex’s – Alex’s husband.’

He nodded, and Louise let out a long breath. As hard as it was going to be, she knew that she owed him a conversation. She opened the door and let him walk inside.

‘He’s still there,’ Hanson told the DCI. ‘I saw her making tea while he stood there, and now they’re in the sitting room, where we spoke to her yesterday. Unfortunately, the curtains are shut, so there’s not a lot I can see.’

‘Did they seem to know each other?’ Sheens asked.

‘I was supposing so,’ Hanson said. ‘But they spoke for a minute and then he walked in. So I suppose it could have been an introduction.’

‘And you think he was following you from the station?’ Jonah said.

‘Yeah, I do. So he might not previously have known where she lived.’

There was a brief silence from the other end of the line. She could almost hear the DCI thinking.

‘If you can get the car close enough and a window down, I’d like you to listen out for any raised voices. Beyond that, if he leaves, stay with Louise. It looks like her husband is checking into a hotel, so I’ve sent a couple of uniforms to take over. Ben is coming back your way. He can go after Issa if needed.’

‘Roger that.’

Hanson started the engine and began to manoeuvre her car, not relishing the idea of sitting with her window down in sub-zero temperatures. But she relished even less the idea of missing something important, and so she pulled the car up, and dragged her stab vest and a jumper from the back seat.

Issa took the tea from her, his hand closing round the hot mug instead of the handle without any apparent reaction. He seemed to be too distracted to feel it. His eyes were darting everywhere around the room. They took in the furniture. The paintings. The photos of her and Niall. His scrutiny made her feel exposed.

She settled herself on the sofa, experiencing the same sense of unreality that had gripped her in the police station and then again in the car on the way home. How could she be sitting in front of a dead man’s husband?