‘That can probably be arranged,’ she said, and ran a hand down his chest until she found the waistband of his trousers.

Louise couldn’t stop shaking. She felt so angry with every man on the planet. With Issa for his horrible, piercingly painful remarks. With that bloody DCI for not believing her, and not finding out what had really happened, either. With Niall, for fucking everything.

And it was only now that the truth of her situation really hit home. That she was never going to feel safe. Even if she somehow avoided jail, Issa would still be out there, thinking she’d done it. Possibly trying to get revenge. And what if it hadn’t been Alex who attacked her? What if it was someone else, who was still out there, faceless and awful?

She put a hand into her hair and squeezed it until it hurt. She felt as though she’d worked herself into a place she couldn’t get out of. She should have told Issa about the rape, or attempted rape, or whatever it had been. God, and she should have got them to test her earlier.

After the awfulness of that truth came another one. It came more slowly, in a cold creeping sensation down her spine.

They thought it was her. Not her husband, who she was now sure had lied to hide an affair with his ex. He’d probably admitted it all to the police. They might even have brought Dina in to back him up, a thought that only made her feel more sick.

So they didn’t suspect Niall any more. They thought it was her, the woman who had slept next to a dead man and then tried to hide it. Of course they thought that.

Which meant they weren’t looking for whoever had attacked her. They weren’t even looking.

The early part of the night had passed uneventfully for Hanson and Lightman, hunched in the freezing-cold car. The two of them had spent much of it in companionable silence, though they’d played a few pointless word games, too.

They had spoken only briefly about Damian, after Ben had suddenly commented, in a voice full of humour, that this must be how her ex-boyfriend felt half the time.

‘Just imagine how many hours he must have spent sitting waiting in his car, just for a few seconds of making you feel uncomfortable.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘The man seriously needs to get a life.’

Laughing at Damian had been a very good thing. As soon as she started thinking about him as a sad individual, she felt enormously better.