‘After that day at Saul Hansard’s gallery, when you tried to force me to sell you my painting, I was scared. You were too keen. I didn’t trust you. I thought you—’ She breaks off, tuts at her inability to say what needs to be said. ‘I convinced myself that you meant me harm. I . . . I had to know who you were, who’d put you up to it. As far as I could see, it could only be one person.’

‘Aidan?’ I guess.

‘Aidan.’

‘But . . .’

‘It won’t make any sense to you, not yet. Not until I show you what he did to me.’ Mary sits down on the bed, pulls her cigarettes and lighter out of her pocket. ‘I told Saul I wanted to write to you and apologise. He wouldn’t give me your address, but he told me your name, said I could write to you care of the gallery. I was sorry, or rather, I was prepared to be, if it turned out . . .’

‘What?’ I say.

‘I had to know why you wanted that picture so much. It was unnatural, the way you latched on to it, as if you had to have it. Have you heard of First Call?’

‘No.’

Mary lights a cigarette, inhales. ‘They’re a firm of private investigators in Rawndesley. Someone I used to know works there. I paid him to find out about you. Your background, everything—as much as there was to know about you, I wanted to know it.’

‘The man with the red bobble hat and the dog.’

‘You saw him?’

‘He kept walking past my house. Looking in at the windows.’

‘You were suspicious of him even with the hat and the dog?’ She almost smiles. ‘I’ll have to tell him he’s wrong. He thinks they make him look innocuous. He’s a bit of a clown, but he got the job done, gave me the information I wanted. From him, I found out about your religious background, your award-winning garden design business.’ She pauses, as if reluctant to state the obvious. ‘And what happened to you in April 2000. Gemma Crowther and Stephen Elton, the court case.’

My skin feels as if tiny bugs are crawling over every inch of it. A stranger watching me, reporting back to Mary . . .

‘I’ve hired him before, successfully. I knew he could dredge up anything of interest. First Call mainly work for insurance and credit card companies, on fraud cases, but they’ve got one or two people who specialise in what they call “matters that require complete discretion”. He’s one of them.’