The more money they have, I thought, the less they fear the police.

‘Should I call my lawyer?’ she said.

‘We’re just talking, Mrs Buck.’

Her hair fell across her face. She looked at me through the damp veil as she lazily pulled it back.

‘Am I a suspect?’

Her voice had become lower and slower. I liked it more.

‘Not yet,’ I said.

We stared at each other.

‘Oh, let’s get it over with,’ she said. ‘Coffee? I’ll have to make it myself. I had to let our housekeeper go when I found her with my late husband’s penis in her mouth.’ She stood up with a sigh. ‘It’s so hard to get good help.’

It was a lovely apartment. Clean, expensive, uncluttered. Big budget, good taste, no children. I thought of the office with all the blood and tried to feel her husband’s presence in this place. But if his spirit was near, I couldn’t sense him. It felt like the home of a woman who had been living alone for a long time.

There were two paintings on the wall, clearly by the same artist. City scenes with a kind of Sunday morning stillness about them. One was of deserted railway lines, the other some kind of tunnel, and they were both misty and dream-like, bathed in the soft light of dawn or twilight. There were no people in them and that gave them a strange kind of peace. I felt like I almost recognised these places.

I leaned in close to the painting of the tunnel, looking for the artist’s name, but there were just two lower-case initials.

j s

A miniature dog came into the room while Mrs Buck was making the coffee. Looked like a Pekingese-Chihuahua cross. I let her sniff my hand and then picked her up and placed her on my thigh. She stood there shivering, as weightless as an insect.

When I tried to stroke her she ambled off to the far end of the sofa and stared at me defiantly as she emptied her bladder.

Mrs Buck came back into the room with a cafetière on a silver tray.

‘Susan, you bad girl,’ she said. ‘You know you’re meant to do that on the carpet.’

Mrs Buck dropped a silk cushion over the stain, pushed the dog on to the floor and then sat opposite me, leaning back, crossing her long legs, and sighing as her robe slid open. She pulled it shut as an iPhone on the coffee table between us began to vibrate. The dog barked at it, quaking with rage as Mrs Buck picked it up and began reading a message. She made me feel like I wasn’t there at all.

I cleared my throat.

‘Who would want to kill your husband?’ I said.

Her pretty face was frowning at the iPhone.

‘Apart from you,’ I added.

Now she looked at me.