Because there is a loose end, one which Beving is still tugging on. I’d met with my lawyer, Pieter Roskam, before going into the station where we were shown to the conference room on the top floor. The table probably seats fifteen; today there are just four. A plate in the middle has a small pile of individually wrapped biscuits. The packets are coated in a thin layer of dust.

‘There’s still the problem with the DNA,’ Beving says.

‘I’ve told you, Benner killed Dirk Zeeman.’

‘But Benner says he didn’t. He admits killing Muller and Kleine but not Zeeman; he was very clear on that. He said it was women he wanted to kill, not men.’

‘He’s just bullshitting, you know that.’

‘But there’s no forensic evidence to suggest he was even there. And your blood was found under the victim’s fingernails.’

‘With respect –’ Roskam takes over for me, probably sensing my nascent frustration. Frustration that can all too quickly lead to anger. ‘This has been gone over to death and –’

‘Ha ha. I thought you were a lawyer, not a comedian.’

Roskam glares at him and continues. ‘My client has consistently stated the facts, that the most likely explanation is that Benner had followed Rykel to the flat being rented by Sabine Wester and took a dressing he’d discarded there from the bin.’

‘And yet the agency that rents that flat out has no record of Sabine Wester ever renting it. And, in fact, we can find no trace of Sabine Wester at all.’

‘Apart from the report filed, by one of your officers, stating that she was attacked by a man and rescued by my client.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t prove that your client then formed some kind of loose relationship with this mysterious woman, and went to stay at her flat, which, as we’ve already established, was in a void period when no one was renting.’

I’ve thought a lot about this. I can’t work it out either. But I didn’t make it up, I’m sure of that. Cut to her whispering I’m sorry in her sleep. It makes me shiver.

But Roskam’s continuing, an unstoppable legal steam train. ‘There’s also the fact that Benner had burned down my client’s houseboat, which proves he knew where he was and was actively targeting him. Has not Benner stated on the record that he wanted to punish Jaap Rykel for putting him away before he could finish what he’d set out to do?’

‘He has. I have the statement here. He fully admits to that. But what he categorically denies is that he placed the evidence on the body, and he denies following Rykel to a flat where he subsequently breaks in and retrieves a used dressing from the bin. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’