‘But I don’t understand.’ Kash was as engaged as Michael had ever seen him. ‘Why is it evidence for the prosecution but not evidence for us?’

‘It is evidence for us, Simon.’ Michael was surprised by the question. Kash was much more incisive – and much more confident – than he had ever been. ‘But in the same way that your phone being there isn’t absolute proof that you’re there, the phone not being there doesn’t automatically mean that you’re not.’

Kash did not reply immediately and Michael did not rush him. He’d been startled but pleased by the uncustomary flash of spirit, and he wished that he had not been forced to dampen it with his answer. But still, even that single moment was progress.

It’s got to be the separation from O’Driscoll. It’s doing exactly what I’d hoped.

‘What about the final call?’ It was Draper who broke the silence. ‘Simon’s phone is still located close to the scene on the last call. Close to Darren’s.’

Kash looked at Michael for an answer.

‘That depends on what Simon tells us.’ Their case still depended on Kash’s instructions; neither Michael nor Draper – nor any barrister – could just invent the facts of a defence. They needed Kash to understand that. ‘Because there are possibilities, aren’t there? It could be that the signal was picked up by the nearest available mast while Simon was half a mile away, and that the same mast just happened to be the one nearest to O’Driscoll’s phone while he was finishing up with the Galloways. That’s possible. But it’s also very weak, especially after everything we achieved with the phone expert this afternoon.’

Michael paused and waited for Kash to look up. He needed Kash to understand this – to engage – because if he did not then they had lost, phones or no phones. He did not speak again until Kash had met his eye.

‘Another possibility, of course, is that Simon was there after the murder,’ he continued, satisfied that Kash was giving him his full attention. ‘It’s possible that Simon was ordered by Darren O’Driscoll – via a third party – to come and collect him, because Darren needed to get away from the scene of the crime. If Simon did as he was told by Darren then that would explain why his phone was present just before O’Driscoll left the scene.

‘Those are the two possibilities I can see from the evidence, Simon. Either catastrophic bad luck with a phone mast, or you were doing what you always do, and by that I mean you were doing what Darren ordered you to do. I don’t know which is true – I have a strong suspicion but I don’t know – but you do. And I need you to tell me so I can win this fight for you. Because if I’m right and the answer is scenario two and you gave me permission to prove it, well, then you just might have a chance of going home.’