A lie I told as a teenager pushes to the front of my mind. I pretended I’d said something similar to my father about the Bible, boasted to my friends about the terrible row it caused. ‘It’s only words, Dad. Someone, or maybe lots of people, sat down thousands of years ago and made it up, the whole lot. They wrote a book. Like Jackie Collins.’ The lie was easy to tell because those words were always in my head, though I lacked the courage ever to speak them aloud. My school friends knew Jackie Collins was my favourite writer; they had no idea that I hid her books under my bed inside empty sanitary-towel packets.

Disgust finally gets me moving: the realisation that I’m thinking about my father in order to dishearten myself, offering myself an excuse to give up. Charlotte Zailer is heading towards the doors, about to disappear inside. I start to run towards her. Something has found its way into my shoe and it’s hurting my foot. I’m going to be too late; by the time I reach reception, she’ll be in an office somewhere, making a coffee, starting her day’s work. ‘Wait!’ I yell. ‘Please, wait!’

She stops, turns. She has been unbuttoning her coat on her way up the steps, and I see she’s wearing a uniform. Doubt stills me, like an invisible blow to the legs, then I lurch forward again, staggering. Detective sergeants don’t wear uniforms. What if it isn’t her?

She is walking towards me. She must think I’m drunk, swaying all over the car park. ‘Are you after me?’ she calls out.

Other people are looking at me too, those getting into and out of their cars; they heard me shout, heard the desperation in my voice. My worst nightmare, to be seen by everybody. Strangers. I can’t speak. I’m confused, hot and cold at the same time, in different parts of my body. I can’t work out any more if I want this woman to be Charlotte Zailer or not.

She draws level with me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

I step back. The thing in my shoe presses into the skin between my little toe and the next one as I put my weight on my left foot. ‘Are you Detective Sergeant Charlotte Zailer?’

‘I was,’ she says, still smiling but more guardedly. ‘Now I’m just plain sergeant. Do we know each other?’

I shake my head.

‘But you know who I am.’

I have rehearsed what I will say to her countless times, but not once did I think about what she might say to me.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Ruth Bussey.’ I steel myself for signs of recognition, but there are none.

‘Right. Well, Ruth, I’m part of the community policing team for Spilling now. Do you live in Spilling?’

‘Yes.’

‘This isn’t a community matter, is it? You wanted to speak to a detective?’

I can’t let her pass me on to someone else. My hand closes around the piece of newspaper in my pocket. ‘No, I want to talk to you. It won’t take long.’