‘Ah, Bert Page – the old gentleman who got mugged by the junkie they just strung up. No, I never met Mr Page. But he sounds like a fine old man.’

‘Did you have contact with Mahmud Irani after he was released from prison?’

Wilder hesitated.

I felt Edie tense beside me.

‘Yes,’ he said.

We waited. I stared at the faded football tattoos on his arms. I saw now they were two crossed irons. West Ham.

‘I got a knife,’ Barry Wilder said quietly. ‘I was planning to stick it in his heart.’

I heard Edie exhale by my side.

I leaned forward.

‘Mr Wilder, I want you to understand that you are not under arrest but you do have the right to have a legal representative present,’ I said. ‘And I have to remind you this interview is being recorded and may be given in evidence if any case is brought to trial.’

He ignored me.

‘I wanted to kill him,’ he said.

Then he waited.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘You wanted to kill him . . .’

‘I thought I could kill him. I thought God would forgive me because of what he did to our Sofi. The way he ruined her. The way he took her life away from her and nobody did anything to stop him. Not you and your lot. And not me, the one man she should have been able to trust. The one man who should have protected her. And I didn’t, did I? Her own father didn’t protect her. Mahmud Irani and those men took her to those rooms and then they filled her with drink and drugs and then they did whatever they wanted to.’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever they wanted, they did to her. And then they phoned their friends and their fucking brothers, and they came round to do what they wanted to my daughter. They made their own pornography. That’s what they were doing with her. And when we got her back, she was pregnant. Did you know that? Did you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘She lost the baby and I thanked God. And how can I live with myself, thanking God for the death of a baby?’

‘Tell me about the knife,’ I said.

‘I said I was going to kill him in the courtroom. You knew that. You quoted the exact words! When they all went down for whatever pitiful little stretch they got. When the judge gave them their slap on their wrists. When all those evil bastards were laughing at us. I said I was going to kill him, didn’t I? So then I got the knife and I waited for him at the mosque where he prays every Friday.’

‘What happened?’