Elinor exhaled, her smile dark and cruel. ‘Oh, Charlie, why do you have to make everything so complicated? This cross-examination is really tiresome.’

She leant over again and kissed him full on the lips, as she ran her hand over his face. Priest didn’t resist, although he had expected it. Her mouth tasted alien, and yet there was something familiar too. He closed his eyes, let her fondle his hair while she gently moved her hand down, pulling the covers away. His heart rate quickened and he slid his fingers across her bare leg. She inhaled deeply in response, undid another button on the shirt with her free hand and pulled it off her shoulder. She pulled her mouth away from his and took hold of his hand, guiding him towards her breast. When he had reached as far as her midriff, he stopped her.

‘Wait.’

He reached across to the bedside table and opened the top drawer. She watched him curiously as he produced a set of handcuffs, which he pressed into her hands.

‘Oh, Charlie.’ She licked her lips and laughed again. ‘You dirty old man.’ She fell across him, kissed his neck, moved the cuffs over his head to the iron bedhead; he reached behind him while she moved further up his body, kicking the covers back with her foot, the handcuffs clicked and she moaned, frustrated, tried to manoeuvre herself down so he could enter her but she wasn’t able to with her hand bound to the bedhead.

‘Let me—’ she grunted, looking up where her hand was cuffed to the bed. Both hands. ‘Wait!’

Priest cupped his hand under her thigh and lifted her off him with ease. She cried out with surprise and irritation but, with both hands out of use, all she could do was tip over as he neatly slid from underneath her, half falling, half jumping out of the bed. Her arm must have twisted as she went because the next noise out of her was a yelp of pain.

‘What the fuck!’ she shouted, staring at her restrained hands, then back at Priest, fury and confusion in her eyes.

‘Hiatt standard steel chain cuffs,’ Priest explained. ‘Best in the business. They’re using Speedcuffs nowadays of course but back in the nineties when I was on the beat these were all the rage.’

‘You fucking bastard!’ she spat. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She pulled hard on the cuffs and although the bed juddered a little she looked secure enough. The bedhead was solid iron. There was a way out, but she was too enraged to see it.

‘Careful,’ he advised. ‘If you rattle that too much you could trap the radial nerve and get handcuff neuropathy. It’s really painful, so I’d just sit tight.’

She shook the bedhead for a few more moments, realised he was right and slumped up on the pillow like a feral dog, snarling at him.