I drive home carefully. I don’t want to spoil it now. Not when I’m so near to my goal. I keep one eye on the phone but it doesn’t ring. There are no messages. Frances isn’t so popular. I panic a little and wonder if you or DS Percy have already warned her and if she guesses that it was me? You would have laid it on thick, made me sound dangerous. She would have been expecting me.

When I’m near my house I duck into the back alleyway lined with copper birch that backs onto my garden and climb through the hole in the fence and I’m home. The fucking dog is barking but it doesn’t matter now because it’s not first thing in the morning and I want people to know I’m here doing a spot of gardening.

I haven’t even got my coat off when there’s a knock at the door. I pull open a work folder from the top of an Amazon box and grab the cup of cold coffee from this morning. I pop a pen on top of it and kick my shoes off and throw them under the table. I even flick the kettle on.

It’s DS Percy. On her own. She looks round at the skip, which I hadn’t noticed had been delivered.

‘True to your word, I see.’

I invite her in. She looks around then at the folder and pen. Then she places my laptop on the table.

‘Clean as a whistle. You can have it back now.’

‘Thanks. Doing a bit of work from home today. Not feeling too well. Probably all getting to me. Coffee?’

She nods and I pick up my mug. She looks at my shoes under the table. I go to the fridge for milk and slide Frances’s phone right to the back. You know, if I met her in different circumstances, I think Lorraine and I could be friends. She’s sitting at the table now, trying to read a report on memory and perception in children under two years old upside down.

‘Your job must be very interesting.’

I stir the coffee slowly.

‘Yes, it is. I like to keep as up to date as I can. Lots of extra reading.’

I put the coffees down and choose the chair closest to her. She leans back slightly as I settle in.

‘So. I’m here to talk to you about your ex-husband,’ she begins.

I smile. ‘Officially or unofficially?’

I remind her of the information she shouldn’t have given me about social services.

‘Officially. He wants to make an official complaint against you. For harassment.’

I nod slowly. Of course you do, Jack. That’s the next clearest course of action for you, isn’t it? Have me arrested so it looks bad. So social services will receive a copy of the court report from your solicitor.