‘Her name’s Gemma Crowther. She was killed last night,’ said Dunning. From his tone, he might have been filling Simon in on the football results. ‘Shot. In her dining room, some time before midnight—that’s when her partner, Stephen Elton, came home and found her. He’d been at Quaker Quest too, but he stayed to clear up after the meeting.’

‘The fat bald guy?’ Simon asked.

‘No.’ Dunning dropped Olive Oyl’s picture on Proust’s desk and pulled out one of a young man—perhaps as young as early twenties, or else the photo was an old one—with prominent cheekbones and shoulder-length dark blond hair. All he needed was some of his girlfriend’s make-up and he could have been the front man of a glam rock band. ‘Did you see him?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

Dunning continued to hold the photograph aloft as he said, ‘So you saw Gemma Crowther alive and well at half past nine . . .’

‘Seed killed her,’ said Simon. As he was saying it, it occurred to him that he ought to wait, oughtn’t to give Dunning the impression that he was someone who leaped to conclusions in advance of having all the facts. Too late. ‘Have you got him?’

‘You’re not hearing me, DC Waterhouse. As things stand, I’ve got you, by your own account, as the last person to see Gemma alive.’

‘You mean apart from Aidan Seed?’

Dunning carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve got two witnesses telling me you were behaving suspiciously near her home—looking through windows, hanging around in your car, watching the house. They made a note of your car registration, thought you were a would-be burglar, picking your moment to break in.’

‘I’ve explained what I was doing there.’

‘I’ve got no one’s word but yours that Aidan Seed was at Quaker Quest or at 23 Ruskington Road yesterday, and I know you think nothing of lying. I just heard you lie to your guvnor when he asked where you were yesterday. I’ve also heard you’ve got a history of, among other things, violent outbursts and obsessive behaviour. You’ve been a detective for longer than I have—you put all that together and tell me what you come up with.’

Simon had trained himself, over the years, to see keeping his temper in check as a feat of strength. Dunning was trying to get a rise out of him; he needed to pour the full force of his anger into resisting. These days he knew how to turn himself into a rock—impermeable. It didn’t feel like weakness any more, not hammering people to the ground with his fists when they pissed him off.