‘What were you thinking?’ I asked. ‘Me in a Ford Focus – what was it? The colour?’ I’d stopped using the Orange Asbo for covert work – for obvious reasons – so it had become my off-duty transport.

‘To be honest,’ said one of the uniforms, ‘you just looked so bloody cheerful – it was suspicious.’

I stayed polite, although I did make a note of their collar numbers because you never know.

Driving while cheerful, I thought, that’s a new one.

Still, it did mean Beverley was waiting for me in bed when I arrived.

4 Obligatory Audience Participation

4

Obligatory Audience Participation

The next morning it was my turn to slip out of bed leaving Beverley behind, invisible under the duvet except for a spray of dreadlocks across the pillow. I had a text from Stephanopoulos – My office @ 7 briefing TST Albertina Pryce.

The police are well aware of the subtle degrees of intimidation they can exert, from the veiled menace of the ‘friendly chat’ to turning up at dawn with a battering ram, a van full of TSG and a documentary TV camera crew. Being asked to show up at a nick first thing in the morning to ‘clarify a previous statement’ is a signal that the police have reason to believe that you are a lying little toerag, but are willing to give you a second chance to come clean. It’s also a signal that a sensible body would bring a brief – just to be on the safe side.

So it says something about Albert Pryce, multiple Booker Prize shortlistee and a man whose appearances on Radio 4 were so frequent that Broadcasting House had given him his own entry pass, that he decided that he himself would be an elegant sufficiency with regards to legal representation for his daughter.

Stephanopoulos and Seawoll, ever alive to the nuances of interpersonal dynamics as they pertain to screwing evidence out of potential suspects, decided to send me in alone.

Normally when you’re handling the rich and powerful you stick them in the ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) suite, which is fitted with pastel furniture and throw cushions designed to make vulnerable witnesses feel more comfortable. But either they were all in use or Stephanopoulos had actually read A Filthy Trade – Pryce’s Booker shortlisted novel of crime and punishment. Which, according to the Times Literary Supplement, beautifully inverted Dostoyevsky’s premise in its portrayal of a man who, having murdered his wife out of sheer exasperation, proves to have a higher degree of morality than the corrupt and degraded detectives who pursue him. By another completely unrelated coincidence we ended up in Interview Room Three which was usually reserved for Belgravia’s more fragrant customers. I’m not saying you were going to slip on sick when you walked in, but there was a marked old-hospital smell of disinfectant and wee.