He looked up at her, not expecting her to believe him, but wanting to explain. “I was happy,” he said. “There was no reason for me to spoil it.” Then he added, with his prisoner’s resignation and hopelessness: “I should have known it was all too good to last.”

She imagined the superintendent’s sneering and refused to accept that he was telling her the truth.

“Where did you get the money for the Jessie Ellen?”

“It was a loan,” he said, “ from a friend.”

“What was the name of this friend?”

He shook his head. “ I can’t tell you that.”

“Was this friend involved in the arson on the boat yard?” she asked with a sudden flash of inspiration.

“No,” he said. “Of course not. How could he be?”

“You could have been paid by someone else to set fire to the yard,” she said.

“No. It wasn’t like that.” He paused, then continued. “Look, I’ve been asked questions like these before. By coppers a lot harder than you. I’ve served my sentence. Now it’s my business.”

“No,” she said. “Now it’s my business. You’re a suspect in the investigation of a very serious case. And, as you said, now you’ve got more to lose. More than last time. This time there’s a girlfriend. And a daughter.”

He looked up sharply, and at first she thought he would deny it. Then pride and a possessive tenderness took over. She could imagine him showing snaps of Matilda to strangers.

“So you know about that?” he said.

She nodded.

“Leave them out of this,” he said. “Rose knew nothing.”

“She knows you’ve been to prison.”

“Yes,” he said. “She knows that. I’ve not lied to her.”

“She means a lot to you,” the inspector said.

“Yes,” he cried. “ She means a lot to me.”

“You’d do almost anything to keep her.”

“She’s not mine to keep.”

“Then you’d do almost anything to make her yours.”

The superintendent would laugh when he heard that on the tape, she thought. “My God, woman!” he’d say. “ You talk like a romantic novel.”

There was a silence, and then suddenly he was shouting. “ I didn’t kill the boy!”

A policeman outside the door looked in to see if Claire needed help. She shook her head briefly, and the constable went away.

“When did you leave prison?” she asked with a calm formality.

“You’ve got the records,” he said angrily. “ You know better than me.”

“Almost four years ago to the day,” she said. “What did you do?”

“I bought the boat in Bristol,” he said, “and I came home.”

“You bought the boat,” she said. “Just like that!”

“It took some time to find what I wanted,” he said, choosing to misunderstand the question. “And to sort out the loan from my friend.”

“How much time?”

He shrugged. “Six months.”