The following Monday, I sat outside the courtroom with a newspaper and a cup of tea. Waiting, again – this time for Liam, the first defence witness. The Crown were nearing the end of their case; apparently they only had a few more witnesses to call, and Liam was coming in from France where he’d been sorting out some problems with the club there.

To my surprise, DS Montford suddenly arrived and sat opposite me at the end of the corridor, staring at her navy court shoe, swinging it on and off her foot like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.

‘You’ve given evidence, haven’t you?’ I asked eventually. There was a small ladder in the heel of her tan pop-sock.

Montford nodded. I’d read her statement. She’d wielded the knife against James like a deranged teenager.

‘So?’ She’d obviously come to freak me out. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I’m waiting for someone,’ she said, pushing her glasses up her nose.

‘Who?’

‘No one you know,’ she said crisply.

After a while, I couldn’t bear the tension any more and went outside to look for Liam but it started to drizzle.

As I walked back into the building, the clerks were ushering someone into Court Number Two – the one beside our courtroom, the wooden doors swinging shut behind him, DS Montford in his slipstream like a small blackbird.

I stopped a court officer who was following them.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Anonymous evidence for the Miller case.’

‘Why are they going in there then?’

‘They’ll video it and transmit it through to next door.’

Twenty minutes later, Liam arrived, sweating profusely. He kissed me on both cheeks, his great hulk squeezed into a navy suit that was a size too small.

‘I’ve put on some weight,’ he said ruefully, as I patted his tummy.

‘It’s all that loving, baby,’ I tried to joke. It was too oppressive to joke, here in the corridors of fear. ‘Or too much foie gras.’

‘Both probably. Sorry I’m late. Christ, I’m nervous.’

‘There’s no need to be, is there?’ I said, eyeing Liam carefully. We’d seen little of each other recently; we’d kept in touch on the phone or by email during the past few months. He had sorted out the finances with Revolver’s lawyers and I received a monthly sum that at least paid the mortgage – the enormous mortgage I’d never realised James had taken out to finance the club in Bangkok he’d dreamed of.

‘Guess not,’ he shrugged.

‘You’ve just got to tell the truth, the whole shebang.’

‘I bloody hate lawyers, though.’ Liam ran a finger round his tight collar; the shaving rash on his neck looked red and painfully raw. ‘So smarmy and smug, always out to trip you up.’

‘Liam?’

‘What?’