‘I find it pointless to discuss questions of blame in my profession. But if you’re into poetic justice then you ought to thank me. After all, I killed Shahla.’

‘Because you wanted to give yourself the perfect alibi. A killer, caught in the act and no longer able to blow the whistle on her accomplice. No, you’re not going to get away with shifting your guilt onto others. Or was it Shahla who gave Anouk the teddy to make me come aboard? Or told her to say my name during that first session to rattle me.’

He kicked the coffee table so hard that the gun fell to the floor.

‘The teddy was Shahla’s idea,’ Elena admitted blithely. ‘She kept it as a souvenir of Timmy and in truth only gave it to Anouk so she had something to play with. There was no ulterior motive there. But it did give Daniel the idea of contacting you. I was against it. I knew the reputation you had as a detective and didn’t want you getting in my way. That’s why I showed you the report about the rape wounds as I knew from that point your search would be focused on a man.’

‘And just to be on the safe side you injured yourself too?’ Martin picked up the pistol.

‘I’m allergic to groundnut oil and so I smeared some on my cheek when I was crawling around on the floor in the anchor room,’ Elena confessed. ‘I didn’t want to be around you any longer; I just wanted to look after Anouk unimpeded. Which I was able to do when I was practically lying next to her in Hell’s Kitchen.’

Her voice became firmer.

‘But let me say this again: I’m not mad. Killing is my job. Not my calling.’

Looking at the weapon in his hand, Martin twiddled it and watched his distorted reflection change in the chrome barrel.

‘You wanted to use Lisa to kill her mother.’

‘Yes, that was wrong.’

If she weren’t such a damn good actress, Martin might have imagined he detected genuine remorse in Elena’s voice.

‘Lisa is Daniel’s goddaughter. She wrote an email to him saying that she had man trouble. Daniel forwarded it to me, thinking that as a woman I’d be better placed to help a girl with this problem. He didn’t know what the “man trouble” actually consisted of.’

Elena’s sounded breathy. She cleared her throat.