According to the piece, the bank for which Bob Jameson had worked owned apartment buildings that were used for prostitution. There was even mention of Bob himself; he was on a list of people who were on the board, all of whom denied knowledge of what was going on, claiming it was simply a property investment. There was a reference at the end of the piece to the bank’s other investments, a multimillion-pound property portfolio, which included apartments blocks where tenants were left without heating or functioning fire alarms, and care homes which made vast profits despite their residents being neglected and underfed.

I absorbed all of this and then climbed out of bed, found a pad of Post-its in my bag and wrote down the name of the bank. Then I got back in and took another sip of my tea. I was beginning to get a more coherent picture of the dead man; Bob Jameson involved in less than savoury activities in the past, now a reformed individual. But was it true?

I returned to finish reading the family feature, interested to see if there was anything there about Amanda, but she was little more than a shadowy presence in the piece, a Melania to his Donald. I stopped dead at a reference to his twin. Although Derek wasn’t named, Bob mentioned that his brother had suffered an accident when they were kids, and that once he regained consciousness Bob had sat with him in hospital for months. I wondered if the accident was the cause of Derek’s limp. It was an experience that had made them even closer, Bob said, but it also made him appreciate proper nursing care and how important hospital funding was. Which set up the carefully prepared pitch for funding for the Jameson Grace Homes that followed.

I finished my tea and stretched down to put the cup onto the floor, reflecting on what a useful piece of furniture a bedside table was, then scrolled down to the comments section at the end of the piece. There was a surprising number of them, but one caught my eye. It was a reaction to what Bob had said about rebirth, and the connection to the “Amazing Grace” hymn.

Rebirth, renewal my arse – shedding his skin like a snake, more like. When a snake sheds its skin, it is still a snake underneath, just like Bob Jameson!

The tone of the article was nauseating enough to provoke that kind of a response. But the word snake stood out as if it were in flashing green lights. I looked to see who had posted it, but it was anonymous. Then I wondered if it had been posted before or after Bob Jameson was killed. When I checked it was January, only weeks after the piece had come out, so before.