‘OK,’ she said, and then without meaning to she gave what was almost a laugh. ‘Please brace yourself because it sounds – it sounds fucking awful, and I’m a little afraid you’re going to think exactly the same as the police.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ he said, soothingly.

‘Well, I went out drinking last night.’ She swallowed. ‘I remember almost none of the later part of the evening. Nothing about how I got home. When I woke up early this morning, there was a dead man lying next to me.’

Patrick’s writing hand went absolutely still, and he fixed his gaze on her. ‘Cause of death?’

‘He was stabbed,’ she said, feeling heat in her eyes and then wetness tracking down her cheeks. ‘And they think – they think I did it. But you have to believe me, Patrick. I don’t know who the hell he was, or how he got there. And I’m – I’m sure I could never have stabbed anyone. I’m so very sure.’

Sometimes you had to attack. To be relentless and without mercy. It was clear to Jonah that this was what he had to do today, to get in there and shake Louise up in the seconds before her solicitor could intervene and distract or calm or deflect. And so he took Lightman with him, told him to play it cold and clinical, and began as he meant to go on.

‘Alex Plaskitt died in your bed,’ he said, harshly. ‘Not in the front garden, as you tried to lead us to assume. In your bed. This man that you apparently didn’t know.’

‘My client’s statement that she didn’t know this man stands,’ Patrick Moorcroft said, easily and loudly. ‘Did you have an actual question, or just a series of statements to make?’

Jonah had dealt with Mr Moorcroft once before. Only the once. He was too expensive for most of the people Jonah interviewed. And he was expensive because he was bloody good. Or, to put it from Jonah’s perspective, bloody infuriating. But Jonah couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for him, however frustrating it was to have an interview essentially dictated by a solicitor.

‘How did a man you don’t recognise end up in your bed?’ Jonah tried instead.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Louise said, with a glance at her solicitor. And that was all she said. Louise seemed collected now. Focused, in a grim sort of way, and less afraid. Presumably because her expensive solicitor was now there.

Patrick gave him the smallest of smiles, and Jonah shared a momentary glance with Lightman, both exasperated and amused in spite of himself. Lightman’s expression in return was, of course, unreadable. Jonah turned back to Louise.

‘I’d like to know how Alex Plaskitt died.’