‘That’s the idea! When you hear the story, it will give you scores of ideas for material. You have your cellphone with you? Why not make a recording, and then when you feel like it you can transcribe it. If I’ve left anything out, you can check with me later. The case I’m talking about was years ago, it was a sensation at the time, but almost everyone who knew about it has died since and no one else remembers it.’

‘I think you shouldn’t tell me confidential details of a police case.’

‘This is a cold case, probably no different from what your research colleague turns up for you. The murder was fifteen years ago, and the file has been closed for years.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘You’ve never heard anything like this, I promise you. It was a case of murder, and the killer confessed to it, but in the end the case had to be closed because nothing could be proved. It remains a mystery.’

We argued to and fro for a little longer, but in the end there was nothing I could say that would stop her. I yielded to what felt like the inevitable. I took my cellphone from my pocket, switched on the voice recorder and laid it on the table between us.

I listened to what she told me, although at first I was feeling resentful that I was having to. It was noisy in the busy restaurant: there were voices calling, doors opening and closing, piped music, a deafening coffee-making machine with constant loud steam release, interruptions from the waiting staff, and everything else that was going on around us. I had transcribed interviews in the past, and knew how difficult ambient noise could make them.

Frejah was not a natural storyteller. She often repeated herself, or added later something she saw as important but had missed out. She sometimes turned away expressively, causing her voice to drop. She mentioned names I was unfamiliar with: I assumed they were Dearth names. I took a few notes on these, intending to check them with her later.

I watched her, at first only half listening to the story she was trying to construct. Her body language was not confident. She seemed half-guilty about the story, also proud of it, almost playing a game. I had the unmistakable feeling there was some agenda larger than just the telling of her ideas for a plot. Was it a confession? A way of sharing the events so that in some way I would become complicit in them?

My interest increased.

Then she finished. The story came to something of an anticlimax, I thought. It was a police case, not a narrative.