Her eyes flick towards mine for the first time, then away almost as quickly. So quick I wonder if I didn’t just imagine it.

‘I was due to be joining it in six months’ time, but I can’t really discuss it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because like everyone else I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.’

‘Even being a family member?’

‘Doesn’t make any difference. Once she took the investors’ money there was no question of me not signing. Not even she could force something like that through.’

‘Why all the secrecy?’

‘The company is focused on some research which could lead to a very significant breakthrough. And that breakthrough could make a lot of money. So no one who is involved with the company can say anything.’

‘Any competitors, people who didn’t want your sister’s company to succeed?’

She shakes her head.

‘What about her boyfriend?’

‘Ruudy? Oh god,’ she says as if she’d forgotten about him. ‘He was devoted to her. I don’t know how he’s going to cope.’

She starts crying again. The thought that this might have been stopped if the investigation into Lucie Muller’s death was handled differently needles at me. As we leave I can’t help thinking that this is all on me.

Friends in Common

Jansen drops me off outside the houseboat.

I’ve lived here for eleven years and have been through so much during that time, it’s like a floating memory bank, good and bad. In those shapeless days and months after the diagnosis it became both my refuge and my prison. And yet I still love the place, love the scuffed paint on the hull, the rich wood of the front door.

Which, as I’m standing here getting all sentimental, suddenly opens and a man I don’t know steps out.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ I call across.

The guy squints up, puts a hand over his brow as if I’m blazing light from my body.

‘You the owner?’

‘Whaddya think?’

He nods like a puzzle’s just been solved. ‘I work with Willem; he couldn’t make it so he sent me. Your neighbour gave me the key.’ He points across to Leah. She has a welder’s mask on and is attaching spent nitrous oxide canisters to an upturned bath in a brilliant shower of sparks.

‘You’re an electrician?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Of course.’

I step over and give him a Rykel Special Stare, Popsicle Edition. It’s cold, hard and long.

‘I mean, I’m not actually qualified,’ he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing a couple of times. ‘But Willem told me exactly what to do.’

Great. So my real electrician outsourced the job to someone who isn’t.

‘All fixed then?’

‘Good as gold now. All you have to do is turn on the main switch on the board and you’re good to go. Willem said you’d pay cash?’