‘Mr Singer, I just have one more question. It’s about the reason you left Meadowfields School in Dorking at such short notice.’

Singer went pale, and scowled at the worn floor tiles of the interview suite. ‘Some allegations were made about me.’

The detective looked down again at his notes, made a couple of small marks with his ballpoint pen on a random document, trying to give the impression that he had a detailed account of those allegations, even though he had no idea what the music teacher had been accused of. ‘Well, perhaps you’d like to give me your version.’

‘I didn’t think the police had ever been brought in. The school said it didn’t want a fuss. Did they report me?’

Gillard shrugged.

‘All right. A year eleven student who had been in my clarinet class accused me of inappropriately touching her.’

‘Did you touch her?’

‘I adjusted the position of the instrument, and corrected the fingering. Nothing more. I expect she has made some lurid allegation.’

‘Were you alone with the girl?’

‘Yes, for a minute, but only because the other tutee had left the room to get a new reed for her mouthpiece from the storeroom.’

The two detectives stared at Singer without saying anything.

He suddenly became animated. ‘The girl didn’t even want to be in the bloody class. Her ambitious parents had bought her a clarinet. She hated it. She hardly practised, had no gift or interest in music and probably felt trapped. An unwarranted complaint against me to her parents was the easiest way of getting her out of music. She probably had no idea of the collateral damage it would cause to me.’

It was a plausible story, and he relayed it with full eye contact. ‘If a whisper of this reaches the Royal College, I will be ruined,’ he said.

‘We’re just trying to get to the truth,’ Gillard said. He had no plans to pass on what he had heard.

‘Self-pity is never attractive,’ Claire told Singer. ‘You’re worrying about your career. You should be worried about Beatrice Ulbricht. You put her in harm’s way.’

Singer barked a sarcastic laugh. ‘If a woman waiting at a bus stop is considered to be in harm’s way, then millions of women are at risk every single day.’

‘It was in a lonely rural spot, at eleven at night,’ Claire said.

Singer looked heavenward. ‘Beatrice has a blue belt in Aikido. She can look after herself.’

‘Well, at the very least you were not very kind to her,’ Gillard said.

‘God, don’t you think I know that? If I could have the time again, of course I would have done things differently. I mean it was only twenty minutes after I watched her storm out that I went out to fetch her.’

‘You went to the bus stop?’ Claire asked.

‘Yes, on foot. I’d had too much to drink to take the car and it was only a short distance.’

‘And she wasn’t there?’