‘I’ll have the steak and ale pie. With chips,’ she said, smiling up at the young man.

Joe ordered the gnocchi.

‘Any starters?’ the soft-skinned angel asked.

‘Some onion rings? For the table?’ she said. ‘And another large white wine for me, please.’

The waiter nodded, raising his eyebrows as he left.

‘A Sopranos fan?’ she said, watching him as he disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Endearing in one so young.’

‘No pencil for him, then?’

She paused, took her napkin, refolded it. Her eyes were wide open, imploring. But they were unsteady, edged with a calm desperation.

‘You told me that the bereavement group didn’t do you any good,’ Joe said. ‘Was this the alternative?’

She reached out and squeezed his hand. He left it there for a second, then pulled it away.

‘I never chose to do this, Joe. None of it. Do you blame me? Really?’

He kept his mouth shut. The digital recorder in his pocket was running. Just let her talk.

‘Under the railway bridge? I stood there and I thought, this isn’t me, is it? Or is it? After all the time, year after year, suddenly everything was clear. There I was, in the present. This can’t be right, I told myself, but it was.’

‘No. Not murder.’

Her face lit up. She threw herself back in her seat, giddy, as though he’d suddenly hit on the truth.

‘You see? It’s exactly that! This can’t be right, can it? But it is. It was. It just happened. Like a lot of things. A lot of things just happen. Horrible things. They happen to people who do not deserve to die.’

‘Jason Beverage didn’t just happen. You meant that to happen. Can I ask you something? Have you been hearing voices? Voices that were telling you to do this?’

‘Yes. No! I mean, no, no.’

She looked around, flapping her hands a little, trying to find the words to express herself.

‘Society? What is it, in the end? It’s just a ledger of good things and bad things. A simple account. I’d never realized it before, never been able to understand. That’s what Craig Shaw gave me.’

‘Gave you?’

‘Down there, under the old railway. Something happened to me. I was taken somewhere, because of him. He showed me, he drove me there. And I’m still there. I see things differently now.’

‘What do you see?’

‘That I did something good, Joe. I adjusted the ledger. They robbed, raped, sold drugs to the poor and the hopeless. The world’s a better place without them. Do the maths. Getting rid of just one of them means, I dunno, fifty, a hundred, two hundred crimes will not be committed.’

‘And you know that for a fact?’

‘Joe, you know I’m right!’

‘Do I?’