The solicitor leaned over to mutter to Louise, and she said in a quiet voice, ‘I do lose … time, sometimes. Some events. Not normally quite so much, but …’

‘Do you often drink alone?’ Jonah asked.

‘No,’ Louise said. ‘I don’t.’

Jonah signalled to Lightman, who brought up the slide containing the photo of the knife.

‘I’d like to ask you once again whether you recognise this weapon.’

‘No,’ Louise said. ‘I told you that before.’

‘Then how did it end up in your bed, alongside the body of Alex Plaskitt?’

‘I don’t know!’ Louise said, suddenly half shouting. ‘It isn’t mine, and I didn’t stab him!’

‘Then who did?’

Louise dropped her head to her hands and let out a growl, but Patrick stepped in smoothly to say, ‘It is the duty of the investigating officers to suggest other suspects. It isn’t my client’s responsibility.’

Jonah had to smile slightly. He gave Patrick a nod.

‘Well, at the moment, our theories are fairly limited,’ Jonah said. ‘We have a murder weapon found in your bed, a dead man likewise, and a frantic attempt to cover up the crime scene.’

‘It wasn’t how you’re trying to make it sound,’ Louise said, angrily, before her solicitor could say anything more.

Jonah nodded again, in satisfaction, this time. He was getting to her, and if he kept on prodding her into speech, then her solicitor wouldn’t be able to help her. ‘So how did he wind up in your front garden when he died upstairs?’

Louise took a deep breath, as though she’d realised that she needed to calm down. To keep to the script. Her voice was much more measured as she said, ‘When I woke up this morning, I was still very much under the influence of alcohol. I was terrified when I found a bleeding man in my bed. At that point I wasn’t certain that he was dead.’

‘It wasn’t obvious from the quantity of blood?’

‘I’m not a doctor,’ Louise said, with a slight spikiness back in her voice. ‘I don’t know how much blood loss would kill someone.’

‘So your reaction would have been to call for help,’ Jonah said. ‘To call an ambulance.’

‘It might have been if I’d been in a more rational frame of mind,’ Louise countered, ‘but unfortunately I panicked. I think it was a combination of the alcohol clouding my judgement and sheer fear. I thought I needed to get him to someone. A neighbour. Anyone. So I dragged him outside, telling him it would be all right, and not understanding that it really wasn’t all right until he was lying on the grass. I realised – I realised …’ She waved a hand in what looked like frustration, her eyes filling with tears.