‘Gary? No, Gary didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t ask him to do that. It’s not really in him to end a life. Won’t kill a spider, will you Gary? It was my job and I did it. Gary brought this despicable man up to the room when he was still unconscious and tied him to the single bed. The same one you’ve been using. I didn’t want to touch him, so Gary put a plastic sheet on him. I use the hoist to get myself from my bed to that one, and I gradually lowered myself onto him, right close, face to face. I needed to see him suffer.’

Leticia struggled to imagine how big this woman must be. ‘You squashed him?’

The laugh again, interrupted by a hacking cough and then a long suck of oxygen. ‘Not all at once. I had some important questions to ask him, so I did it a little at a time. I used the remote to gradually lower myself in the hoist. Sat on him, then lay on him. Hard to get it right. Eventually, I knelt on his hips. My forearms were across his chest. Lifted the hoist, then set it down. Squeeze, hold, hold, hold, then relief. Squeeze then relief. I must have done it a hundred times. Taking him to his final breath, saw the flush on his face turn to purple, blood fill his eyeballs. I wanted him to find it as difficult to breathe as I do. When you have 489 kg on you, it’s very hard to take a breath.’

‘You weigh half a tonne?’ Leticia squeaked.

‘Just recently, yes. I didn’t always. When I was young I was a dancer, believe it or not. On a cruise ship. Ballet was my thing, though there is no call for that on a cruise. When I was sixteen, I weighed less than eight stone, around a hundred pounds. My weight was quite normal for as long as my life was normal. Then on 4 September 1986 my Robert disappeared on the way home from playing football. Verity was only four and Gary just a baby. I struggled with it for a few months, depression, anxiety and worst of all, hope. Hope is the bitterest of all emotions because of its falsity, its nagging chirpy unwarranted optimism. My marriage failed, my husband divorced me, and I found my solace in eating. You see, when hope died I took to my bed and I have not left it since.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Sorry? Words are cheap. You can’t imagine the pain. I promise you that. It never goes.’

‘But you can do things about your weight, you always can.’

‘I know. I’ve been on a diet recently.’

‘It didn’t work?’