‘Yes,’ Issa said. ‘I thought he might cheat again. When he didn’t reply to my messages on Friday, I called him, and a woman answered instead. So I went to find him. I couldn’t get my car out so I took his. I should have told you … but I never found him. I looked for him up London Road, and then between there and home. But I didn’t catch sight of him.’ He put his hand onto the table edge, very carefully. ‘I must – I must have driven right past them, mustn’t I? While he was attacking her.’

‘It’s possible,’ Jonah agreed. ‘They would have been out of sight.’

‘Why do you think he ended up at her house?’ Issa asked, his gaze fixed on his own fingers. ‘Do you think she ran and he kept following?’

‘That’s the most likely explanation,’ Jonah agreed. ‘Alex may even have forced his way into the house after she injured him fighting him off. We think he might have taken her driving licence earlier on. So he would have known where she was. But by that point he had suffered extensive blood loss. Whatever he planned by way of revenge or … well. It may not have happened.’

Issa gave a small, hiccupping sob. ‘It’s – I still feel so sad that he – that he just curled up and died. Alone. And I don’t know how I can feel that now that I know …’

‘It’s still possible to feel for people,’ Jonah said, gently. ‘Even those who have done terrible things.’

Issa looked up towards the ceiling, but he nodded.

‘Do you have any idea why Alex might take hair from these women?’ Jonah asked. ‘Was there some reason for it?’

‘I don’t – I suppose all these women were – they looked a little like Alex’s mother.’ He rubbed at each of his eyes in turn. ‘I think he felt more betrayed by her, when she turned on him for his sexuality, than he did by his father. Maybe they all represented her. Or just … the women he told himself he should desire. I don’t know.’

There was a silence in the interview room for a few seconds, and then O’Malley, his voice full of sympathy, asked, ‘Could you explain to me, too, why you were trolling your husband?’

Issa’s empty expression briefly shifted. Fleetingly, he looked as though he hated himself.