This to me seems like a crucial moment in the development of this whole confrontation. For some reason I absolutely believe that if Brandi gets her boots off the surface of Vic’s desk (my desk) then I have lost whatever upper hand I had, which was pretty crappy in the first place.

So Brandi is pulling her boots away from me, knees up around her pirate earrings, but she doesn’t move fast enough. I reach out and grab her right ankle and squeeze it till the patent leather squeaks, which kinda sucks the gravity from the moment.

‘This smells clean,’ I say, gritting my teeth with the effort of holding on to the boot and carrying on a conversation. ‘Real clean. I bet you used a whole pack of antiseptic wipes on this boot.’

‘Gotta keep germ-free, Daniel,’ says Brandi. Her voice is super-innocent, like a girl scout, but her eyes are darting around the office like something or someone is going to pop up with another surprise.

‘You should have burned this pair, Brandi. I know they’re your favourites, but you’ve got others.’

I’m rambling a bit, but that’s because half of me knows that the accusation I’m about to make is at best based on a hunch and at worst based on supernatural intervention.

‘Why the fuck are we talking about my boots? First no booth, now you have something against my boots? Let go of my goddamn leg, Dan.’

‘You should have burned them,’ I say again, using my old trick of repeating myself to buy a second. ‘Because all the blues need is one strand of DNA, caught in a stitch. All they need to do is match your heel to the hole in Connie’s head.’

Brandi is a little pale under her make-up. ‘Let go of my leg, Daniel. You’re hurting me.’

Is this what she should say? Is this what an innocent person would say?

‘Aren’t you going to tell me that you’re innocent? Protest and so forth?’

‘And so forth? Who the fuck are you?’

I admit it. That was a little Dr Moriarty.

‘I’m taking this boot to the cops. If they find nothing, then no harm done and you can jerk whoever’s pecker you like for a month. But if they find some trace, then there won’t be any peckers where you’re going.’

Brandi sees in my face that this isn’t one she can talk her way out of.

‘Get your hands off me, asshole.’

‘What’s the problem? Just give me the boot and you get to rule the roost around here, so long as you had nothing to do with Connie.’

Brandi sneers at the sheer volume of dumbness in my plan. ‘I don’t care if that boot has Connie’s eyeball stuck on the heel, you’re still the one handing it over. The jilted boyfriend.’