She shook her head. She had had enough. She took out her phone.

‘Where were you between the hours of five and seven a.m. yesterday? I am going to need your credit card records, mobile phone bills, computers and their passwords. Laptops, desktops, tablets, the lot. Are you listening to me, Mrs Buck?’

She stood up.

‘Do you really want to know about my husband?’

We stared at each other.

‘Yes.’

‘Then let me tell you about my husband,’ she said.

With a shrug she let the robe fall from her shoulders and to the floor.

I saw the bruises on her arms and legs. On her long limbs there were fresh, livid marks and there were old and fading marks. All the signs of systematic and regular beatings that carefully avoided the face.

‘This was my husband.’

‘Mrs Buck—’

‘He was the violent one, not me. When I picked up that little oyster knife he laughed in my face. He laughed at me, detective. But I didn’t want him dead, no matter what I told him.’ The tears finally came and they seemed real enough to me. ‘I wanted him to be kind,’ she continued. ‘I wanted him to stop running around. I wanted him to stop humiliating me with women too poor and too stupid to tell him no. I wanted him to stop.’

I was on my feet. ‘Please, Mrs Buck—’

‘Natasha.’

I picked up her robe and draped it around her shoulders. She put her arms around my waist. I think she just wanted to be held for a while. I think she was sick of all the questions. I think she was just lonely. Our faces were next to each other. I could feel her breath. And I felt the blood flood into me unbidden.

Because I was lonely too.

After a long moment I pulled myself away, cracking my shin against the coffee table and waking up the dog.

Natasha Buck smiled sadly as she slipped the robe back on and tied the belt around her slim waist.

‘Ah, that rare breed,’ she said, nodding towards my left hand. My wedding ring had caught the soft light as I picked up my cup. ‘A married man who loves his wife!’

‘Drink your coffee,’ I said.

The porter was nowhere to be seen when I left. The journalist and the photographer had disappeared. The chauffeur was dozing at the wheel of the Mercedes, his peaked cap pulled over his eyes. The dogs in the park had all gone home and the day was dark far too soon.

I was walking to the car, kicking through the piles of autumn leaves and thinking of Natasha Buck’s long naked limbs, when DCI Mallory called.

‘It wasn’t beginner’s luck,’ he said. ‘We’ve got another one.’

Chapter 4

4