‘Then you don’t know physics,’ Mims interrupted. ‘But, being kind to you, it has to do with the fact that I had an affair with one of the greatest living physicists of the last two centuries, and that’s what makes entering the profession trickier for me. Everyone thinks I’m just there because of nepotism.’

‘So, you coloured your hair blue and moved down here.’

‘Moved back down here,’ she corrected. ‘My parents are from Barking.’

‘They must be mad to live there,’ Priest remarked, and despite it being an embarrassing attempt at humour she smiled.

‘That’s fucking awful. I’m sorry, by the way, about knocking you over. I used to run at uni and I still train in the gym. Quite a race, wasn’t it?’

Priest grinned. ‘It’s on YouTube, if you want to relive it. Two hundred “likes”.’

‘That’s cool.’

Mims got up without warning and went to the sideboard. She rummaged around in the drawer then produced the phone. Handed it to Priest.

‘I’m sorry, the battery’s dead,’ she told him. ‘I was just looking through it – only for a moment. I don’t have the charger. I haven’t seen Simeon, like I said, but that doesn’t mean . . . you know.’

‘Doesn’t mean you don’t care,’ Priest suggested. Mims nodded, sadness in her eyes. ‘Want to tell me what happened?’

She sat down again next to him and curled her legs under her, like she sat on the office chair in the gym. He noticed that she never seemed to sit or stand completely straight, she was always at an angle.

‘I know that Simeon was helping you,’ she began, turning to face him. ‘He spoke very highly of you, by the way. Thought you were a champion of the underdog, like he was. Or at least like he wanted to be. He worked for the Elias Foundation, directly for Alexia at one point, and of course he knew what sort of person she was. But you should know that . . .’

‘That she didn’t take bribes from the Free People’s Army,’ Priest finished for her.

Mims looked at him, aghast. ‘You knew?’

‘I suspected.’

‘But you were running the magazine’s defence.’

‘I was,’ Priest confirmed, unapologetic. ‘But there’s a difference between knowing your client is lying and having a suspicion that part of the evidence might be a fabrication. Courts aren’t about truth; they’re about who can prove what.’

‘Perhaps I was naive to think otherwise.’