‘Oh yeah, they try to. He always gets a major bollocking and they put him on Within Eyesight or Within Arm’s Length or something, but they can only keep it up for so long. After that, they do what they can to keep an eye on him, but he’s pretty sneaky about it. Eventually he finds a way to clamber on to a trolley or get on somebody’s shoulders and smear something gloppy over as many cameras as he can get to before they catch him. At first it was a big deal, I mean they took it dead seriously and they’d be cleaning the cameras up straight away. Then it just became something they got used to and nobody could really be arsed to get it fixed that quickly. Marcus says it’s a health and safety issue, nurses with buckets and cloths climbing up on stuff or whatever, so these days they tend to wait for one of the hospital janitors to come along with a ladder and sort it out. Pain in the arse for them, obviously, but pretty funny.’

‘Not if you’re running this investigation,’ Banksy said. ‘According to the log, the camera covering the men’s corridor went out just after half-past nine and wasn’t . . . cleaned up until just before the body was discovered. So, yeah, they’re looking at the murder taking place during that same hour, but it’s also an hour when the camera was out.’

‘Fucking Graham.’ I shook my head.

‘Fucking Graham.’

‘Just when dinner’s finishing,’ I said. ‘Staff cleaning up, people milling about all over the shop. Always a bit full-on, that time.’

‘Something else.’ Banksy was looking at his notepad again. It was hard to contain myself. ‘They found drugs in the victim’s bedroom. Quite a lot of drugs.’

‘What kind of drugs?’

‘I don’t have the details, but . . . pills. Prescription stuff, sound of it.’

‘Jesus.’

‘That’s it.’ He closed his notebook. ‘Trust me, I had to twist a few arms to get that much.’

I told him I appreciated it, said I’d try not to bother him again. ‘I can’t promise, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ he said. Then, when he’d stood up and was hanging about looking awkward: ‘Listen, Al, don’t bite my head off, but I’m not convinced this is the kind of thing you need right now. That it’s good for you.’

‘Are you joking me? It’s exactly what I need.’

‘I mean, shouldn’t you just be . . . ?’

‘What? Chillin’? Putting my feet up? Catching up on all those good books I should have read?’

‘You know what I mean, Al. Come on, I don’t want to debate this with you again, but you know you’ve not been well. I mean, you do admit that much, right?’