He’d expected her to roll straight into a smooth answer, like she had with the podcast guy, Hogan, but she looked at her plate for a moment before responding.

She said, ‘The book I did before Moral War—it was called Night Traffic. About drug dealers in Chicago. I exposed quite a network of them. There were a few people I was going to name—somehow they got wind of it, and they weren’t especially happy. As you can imagine. I started getting all kinds of threats in the mail. Don’t-publish-or-else type of thing. But of course we did publish, and I did all the press, and then a couple of months later I was at home by myself, just standing there slicing vegetables, and I looked up and there was this guy standing in the door to the hallway. Coat and gloves on, black ski mask, sunglasses.’ He could see it replaying in her mind as she looked away from him, across the room. ‘We sort of looked at each other for a second, and then he was coming toward me, and I just picked up the chopping board and hit him with it. Straight in the face.’

Vincent smiled. ‘That’ll do it.’

‘Yeah. I think he decided he’d had enough at that point, and got out of there. Maybe it was his first home invasion. But somehow with the impact and … I don’t know, maybe just the adrenaline, I lost my balance and put a foot through our French door. Ended up in hospital for three days. While ago, now. Six years. They picked the guy up a few months later on something unrelated. He’d left a fingerprint on our front gate. They think he didn’t glove up until he was actually on the property.’

‘Amateur.’

‘Yeah, luckily. But anyway. To answer your question. The thing that started it off, I had various opinions about … I don’t know. How the police were tyrannical and oppressive, basically. But then the guys I dealt with at Chicago PD were terrific. Which sort of changed my thinking on that issue. And it made me think there were other things I needed to consider more carefully.’ She shrugged. ‘And I did. And obviously adjusted my position on various issues.’