‘Tell us why, then? Why the hell would you fake an attack on yourself, that so closely resembled the ways Steve and Saul were killed, if you’re not the person who committed those crimes in the first place?’

To my horror, Mike began to cry. He put his head down on the desk and he sobbed, big ugly sobs that screwed up his face. The two detectives looked at each other, clearly surprised by the effect they’d had on him.

There was a long pause as Mike sniffled and tried to pull himself together, then he shook his head and thumped the table.

‘It’s all that bitch’s fault. If she wasn’t so cold to me, I would never have had to do something like this. She’s messed up. She’s messed ME up.’ He took a big shuddering breath. ‘You can’t arrest me for this, I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s a mental health issue. I need to be assessed by a psychologist or something.’

My heart was hammering at this outburst. Was he talking about Jess? I hoped he was, but I wasn’t confident.

‘We’ll certainly look into that,’ Forest replied. ‘You’re claiming you did this for attention?’

He laughed coldly. ‘Attention. You make me sound like the stupid little teenage girls I have to deal with every day. No, I did it to teach her a lesson. Paige fucking Northwood caused this. You should arrest her. She’s cruel and manipulative, and I did this to show her just how much damage she’s doing.’ Mike stared wildly at Forest as he continued. ‘You know she’s dangerous. She manages to convince everyone that I treated her badly, but I would never do that. She’s got him wrapped around her little finger,’ he said, stabbing a finger towards Singh.

Forest shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t believe this. You’ve wasted our time with this, when we could be out catching a murderer, and more importantly finding one of your vulnerable students. I’ll be putting forward a case to have you charged with wasting police time, and anything else I can find that will stick. You’d better find yourself a decent lawyer.’

The detectives wrapped up the interview as my legs gave way and I sank to the floor in the observation room. How could Mike have done something like this? Faked an attack on himself, just to get a reaction out of me? Maybe the old me would have gone running to check he was okay, or let him back into my life out of guilt or duty, but there was no way in hell that was going to happen now.

I’d stopped shaking by the time Singh came back to get me.

‘That’s not what we were expecting,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I let you listen to it now.’