The Los Angeles police picked up Ivan without much trouble; he was a well known man about town. They had enough on him to put him away for five, maybe ten years – but there were worse crimes in LA than small-time drug dealing and brothel keeping. Why bust him? He was a popular and successful adult movie star-turned-producer. His face was on billboards in some of the less family-oriented districts. He paid his taxes, contributed to AIDS charities and appeared on cable TV. In his own small way, Ivan was a celebrity, and celebrities could get away with more than civilians.

But not murder.

It didn’t take long to persuade Ivan that it would be in his interests to tell the police who had arranged for Will to be brought to a certain club at a certain time, to be given certain drugs and introduced to certain people with secluded apartments in Laurel Canyon. They spelt out the consequences if Ivan chose to keep this information to himself: arrest, ruin and probable incarceration. Prison, they said, was not quite how he had portrayed it in his movies.

And so he told them about how one of his investors had made him an offer he could not refuse – enough money to open his own studio, maybe his own store, in return for certain services, which he had provided.

No, the money had still not been forthcoming.

And the name of this welcher?

Massimo Rivelli.

‘You don’t think that you might be going a bit too far on this one, Jessica? It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I’m not sure that that judge will.’

‘I’m telling you, he hit me.’

‘Just once,’ said Christine, ‘or regularly?’

‘A few times.’

‘In anger?’

‘Yes, of course in anger.’

‘When you were arguing?’

‘Yes. I mean, he didn’t just walk in one day and start beating me up.’

‘What were you fighting about?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

Christine took off her glasses and sighed. Here we are again, she thought. Another vindictive spouse spewing bile all over the courtroom. Jessica maintained that Rocky Rodean, the nation’s favourite uncle, was a wife-beating thug.

‘If we’re going to win this case,’ said Christine, ‘we have to give the overwhelming impression that you are in the right. Do you understand me? If the judge thinks that Rocky raised a hand against you with good reason . . .’

‘What? How dare you? How could there ever be a good reason to hit me?’

I can think of several.

‘Then he’s not going to be swayed by some unsubstantiated allegation of domestic violence.’

‘What do you mean, unsubstantiated? I took photographs.’

‘Which is good, well done,’ said Christine, thinking what a disgusting life Jessica and Rocky must have had together. ‘But I still need to know why he did it. What was the argument about?’

‘I’d rather not say.’