I expected Patrick to follow up on it, to ask her what the matter was, why she’d stopped, but instead – quietly, but audibly – there was a noise in the background of the interview. It took me a split second to work out what it was: a door opening.

‘Uh, sorry, have you booked this room?’

Another male voice.

‘I didn’t realize you had to,’ Patrick replied.

‘I’m afraid you do. At reception.’

‘Oh, I apologize. Just give us a second.’

The door closed again.

‘Bloody hell,’ Patrick muttered. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘I’m trying to get a sense of what went on, of what you did and how it happened, but it’s so complicated. You can’t come to me, I can’t go to you, if anyone at Black Gale sees me with you, they’re going to start to ask me questions, and that’s exactly what you don’t want to happen.’ A long, frustrated pause. ‘I thought coming to the club would be a good idea on a day like this. I mean, look at the weather: who’s going to come here today to play golf? But even here, it’s …’

He stopped.

They were at a golf club somewhere, in a reception room. A place that would raise no questions for Patrick and no questions for the woman.

‘I should never have asked for your help,’ she said.

‘It’s fine. I want to help you.’

‘It’s wrong to involve you.’

‘It’s not wrong, it’s just complicated.’

More silence. As the recording whirred on, backed by nothing but the sound of rain against the windows, I tried to imagine what was going on and where this fitted in.

‘I’m going to have a think about –’

Patrick turned the recording off.

I stared at the Dictaphone, watching as the numbers halted and reset again. A split second later, the next recording – the forty-third and final one – came to life.

‘Are you okay?’

Patrick again. It was dated 29 October – two days before the Halloween dinner – and the background noise was different this time: no rain, none of the compressed sound that came with recording inside a room. I could hear birds, the rustle of trees, and yet they were still somehow subdued.

And then I realized why.

They were in a car.

‘I’m fine,’ the woman said. ‘You?’

Patrick sighed. ‘I was coming out of the house yesterday, with this useless bloody camera, ready to walk down here to meet you, and then Fran got back early from work and started asking me what I was doing.’ The wind picked up outside the car. ‘I hate all the lies.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I understand why. I just …’

He didn’t finish his sentence.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ the woman said.

‘It’s fine. I want to help you.’

‘I didn’t want it to be like this.’