Patrick stood to greet her, grin restored. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, just like that first time she’d walked over to join him by the espresso machine.

‘Still as the dead, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘My thoughts exactly.’ She watched him place the cup and push the button, the grinding and gurgling emitting reassuring sounds and smells. ‘Anything happened?’

‘No. Though I hope one thing that’s happened is our friend Buttler thinking better of his crazy theory.’

She took the cup and saucer he was holding for her and they walked together to his desk. She sat down opposite and slowly sipped, trying to arrange her proliferation of thoughts into an orderly list. ‘His theory isn’t crazy. It fits the known chronology.’

‘But not true.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘No, Patrick, not true.’

‘Sara, it wasn’t a question, it was a statement.’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I guess this is what it does to you.’

He drained his cup and walked over to the expanse of window, staring at the American Embassy, its strange conical ornaments reflecting the sky, and the muddle of blocks and towers beyond. She ranged alongside. ‘Buildings,’ he said. ‘Great slabs of concrete, steel and glass bolted into the ground. At the centre that enormous mass of the Embassy – the central event, if you like. The death. It stands out but around it there’s no clear pattern. Structures of different heights made of different materials. Brick façades, huge plasticky panels – red, green, grey, silver, blue – smooth concrete, windows of all shapes and sizes. But let’s imagine we change the colour of one of those giant panels.’

‘Metaphor over?’

He turned to her. ‘What if it wasn’t Morahan who texted you?’

‘I don’t follow…’

‘What if the person Morahan was with texted you from Morahan’s phone? And he was already lying dead on the sofa.’

‘You mean… you mean I was summoned to be the patsy.’ She closed her eyes, turning over the vileness of it. ‘The fall guy. Girl, rather.’

‘Or, as I said, it was done to scare you. Either way, it explains why your text was remotely deleted. It also shows a certain expertise – but one an amateur might possess. I was bluffing that with Buttler but I’ve checked since. You can even get gizmos to do it on the net though it might depend on the phone you have.’

‘Keep going.’

‘It means one very simple thing. Because of the chronology the medics were given, no one made an issue about the exact time of his death. And it rapidly becomes too late to revisit once the body’s beyond a certain stage.’

‘I’m seeing it.’

‘Quite. Morahan could have died any time after you left the office. From 7.15 p.m. onwards.’

Sara recalled that parting conversation when she left for home. ‘Rayah.’