‘Is that admissible?’ PC Noakes asked ‘Aren’t conversations between psychiatrists and their patients legally privileged?’

‘Yes, they are,’ Gillard replied. ‘But the therapist persuaded him to make a statement, and it would be sensible of us to try to replicate that statement on tape, then we can wrap this up. I’ll go up to Winchester straightaway. Perhaps you could speak to Callum Willow alone, and give my apologies to his mother.’

‘Right,’ said PC Noakes. ‘You just want to know where he found the dagger?’

‘Yes, and when. Callum can’t have been involved. He would only have been five at the time Valdovas was killed.’

Gillard met up with DC Rainy Macintosh at HMP Winchester. Rory Tickett was in a terrible state. Dishevelled, wild-eyed and as pale as a ghost, he sat opposite Gillard and the duty solicitor, flanked by two hefty prison officers. Rory seemed to look past them all.

‘There are spiders in my room,’ he whispered. ‘Huge invisible spiders, that are beaming their thoughts into my head.’

‘We’ve come to ask you about something else,’ Gillard said. ‘Your argument with Mr Tomas Valdovas.’

‘He sent the spiders from hell, as vengeance,’ Rory whispered. He banged his temple with the heel of his hand. ‘They’re in here, they don’t leave me alone.’ He punched his own head twice, hard enough to make Gillard wince. He was far from sure that this interview was going to achieve any more than the one with Stewie Ransome had.

‘Do you remember Tomas Valdovas? Tom, with the blond hair.’ Rainy passed across a photograph from Vicky Willow’s collection. ‘That’s him.’

‘I hurt Tom, but I didn’t mean to. But the spiders don’t care.’

‘Why did you hurt him?’ she asked.

‘We had a barney, in the bar.’

‘About what?’ Gillard asked.

‘A spilled pint, nothing really. I was tanked up, and waited for him in the car park.’

‘This was after closing time?’ Rainy asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember an exact day or date?’ Gillard asked.

‘It was a Sunday night in October, a couple of years ago. The pub had emptied out. I only punched him the once. Aidan pulled me away.’

‘And this was in the car park? You didn’t fight anywhere else?’ Gillard was thinking of the bloodstains in Dove Cottage.

‘No. I punched him in the temple, a right hook, and he went down and banged his head.’

‘Why didn’t you call an ambulance?’ Rainy asked.

‘Because he got up again, after a few minutes. He was all right, and I apologised and we shook hands. But then he died in the night.’

‘How did you know?’ she asked.