He shook his head in amazement. ‘You’re overthinking everything, Letty. You can’t be nice to everybody. What about that guy from Special Branch you work with? You could just leave it in his in-tray. Make it his problem.’

Leticia sighed and put her hands over her face. ‘That would just get back to me.’

‘Well then maybe you should just throw it away.’

‘Anton! That’s destroying evidence.’

He stood up, clenching his fists in exasperation. ‘Look, baby. It’s a high-profile case. They will get the murderer eventually. I don’t care what you do, but don’t leave it here. The cops have a habit of turning up uninvited.’

Leticia awoke just after six the next morning. She hadn’t slept well. The spectacle arm had been hidden under the cutlery tray in the kitchen, but she had kept dreaming that the police arrived and found it. She had lain awake after each dream, pondering where would be a better place for it, but failed to come to any conclusion. Meanwhile Anton had slept soundly beside her, provoking in her a little nugget of resentment.

There was one thing she had decided during her long hours tossing and turning. She would ring Verity and simply ask her about the glasses. If she had a good explanation, that would be the end of it. She made herself a coffee, went online and looked up Ferrari brand glasses. She found that there were many different versions. As Anton had said last night, she was probably making a lot of fuss about nothing. But on the other hand she couldn’t just afford to do nothing about it, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get on with her day until she had put this particular anxiety to bed.

It was cruelly early after a heavy night out, but she rang Verity at 8:30 a.m. The phone was off, so she left a message asking how she was. She made no mention of the real reason for the call.

For the next hour she paced about. Anton would probably eventually give her a lift to go and get her own car back from the office car park, but he was still asleep. There was another way. She could get a bus to the office now. It would take twenty minutes. Once she had the car it would be quite possible to drop in to see Verity at her house in Walton. That wouldn’t be far out of her way. Yes, that’s what she’d do.