A gloved hand suddenly appears and snatches Archer’s phone from her ear and some strands of hair too.

‘What the hell?’

It’s the moped rider.

‘Hey!’ she calls, but he speeds off across the car park and onto the busy Strand. She sprints after him taking to the road because the pavement is crammed with people. She darts in between cars and sees the moped rider slow to a stop at the lights near Trafalgar Square.

The thief has raised his visor slightly and is looking down at her phone.

‘I don’t want this piece of crap!’ he shouts at her and throws the phone onto the other side of the road and the oncoming traffic. Her heart sinks when the glass smashes, and ends up in a puddle.

‘You shit!’ she shouts, committing his number plate to memory.

He gives her the finger and jumps the red light.

Archer crouches down and picks up the phone from the cold dirty water. She wipes it with her cuff and presses the touch button, but the screen is completely smashed and the phone looks beyond repair.

Looking on the bright side, at least her awkward exchange with Dom was cut short. She almost wants to laugh but once again has the sensation that someone is watching her.

She looks around scanning faces, but no one is looking her way.

Hello, paranoia, my old friend.

Archer slips the broken phone into her pocket. As she makes her way up Adelaide Street she hears a voice say, ‘Hello, again.’

She jumps and looks across to see a man with an untidy mop of grey hair and a jowly red face sitting on the Oscar Wilde memorial granite bench.

The reporter, Mike Hamilton.

‘Detective Inspector Archer, please may I have a moment of your time?’

‘I have nothing to say to the press, Mr Hamilton.’

He smiles at her, looks down at the inscription on the bench and reads it aloud. ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Profound, don’t you agree?’

‘I would agree that “gutter” is certainly appropriate at this moment.’

Archer turns to leave.

‘Please wait,’ he says, getting up and touching her arm.

Archer looks down at the pudgy pale fingers on her sleeve.

‘DI Archer, I’d like to help you.’

Archer frowns. ‘And how could you do that?’

‘Let me tell your story.’

Archer’s hands ball in the pockets of her coat. ‘I don’t have a story, Mr Hamilton.’

‘Oh, but you do, Detective. May I call you Grace?’

‘No, you may not.’

‘What happened to you all those years ago?’

Archer feels like she’s been punched. She swallows and turns to leave, but Hamilton hurries ahead of her and blocks her way. ‘Perhaps we got off to a bad start. What I meant—’

‘Three people are dead, Mr Hamilton. Wouldn’t your time be better spent reporting the facts on their murders?’