He took off his glasses. ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal details at this stage—’

I raised my hands to let him know I got it, although, one copper to another, he shouldn’t have been quite so Job-pissed. In his shoes I’d have been happy to bring a colleague up to speed. I sat back and told him why a blade was the obvious weapon and let him know how easy it was to smuggle anything smaller than a baby elephant on to the ward. I told him that if they were looking for the murder weapon – and why wouldn’t they be – they should widen the search to include the hospital grounds, because there were several patients on unescorted leave who pretty much had the run of the place.

I waited.

I was wearing a T-shirt and I could see he was looking at the scars on my arms.

‘Like I said.’ He put his glasses back on and turned a fresh page, ready for the next customer.

‘There was a fight,’ I said. ‘Did anyone tell you that? A big one and Kevin was right in the middle of it. It was me that broke it up, actually.’

‘When was this?’

‘On the Wednesday. Three days before Kevin was killed.’

He didn’t like me putting it like that, I could tell, but he was obviously interested. ‘Who was the fight between?’

‘Well, there were lots of people involved, but mainly it was Kevin and Tony. I don’t know if you’ve talked to Tony yet.’

Seddon looked at a list. ‘Anthony Lewis?’

‘Yeah. He can be a bit . . . volatile, you know?’

‘So, what was the fight about?’

I’d heard several conflicting stories and I wasn’t convinced that Lauren didn’t have quite a lot to do with what happened, but at least one version of events involved Kevin saying something to upset Tony. Something about the Thing, most likely. So that’s what I told Seddon, because I thought he should know.

He thanked me, which was nice. Told me I’d been very helpful.

‘Least I can do,’ I said. ‘I mean, I do know how this goes. Waiting for the PM results, whatever the forensic boys come back with . . . and obviously you’ve got the cameras.’

‘Yes, of course.’ He was done with me, I could tell. ‘We’ll certainly be reviewing the ward’s CCTV footage. So . . .’

Bingo. The lack of enthusiasm wasn’t just down to the fact that he was having to waste his time questioning a bunch of fruitcakes. There are cameras almost everywhere on the ward and yeah, there’s a couple of blind spots, but there’s certainly one that gives a perfect view of the men’s corridor. So he was sitting there, cocky as you like, thinking he’d have the whole thing wrapped up by the end of the day.