‘Oh, to be able to say “important” as if there’s no subjectivity involved!’ Halliday sighed. ‘Okay: Linzi Birrell: I was in the Lifeworld office all day. Rhian Douglas: I was on a train in the morning, to Gobowen – nearest station to Oswestry, where I spent the afternoon interviewing a woman who’d exited the sex trade after many years being prostituted and exploited. Angela McCabe: I was in Oxford at a Focus On Femicide conference all day. Joshua Norbury: I was at home in the morning writing a piece for Lifeworld, then in the afternoon I went to Hertford to collect a painting: my mother-in-law’s Christmas present. Satisfied?’

‘First time round, you said more about the Christmas present.’

‘No, I didn’t. I said, “my mother-in-law’s Christmas present” and I moaned about having to sacrifice an afternoon to pick it up. It was a painting of a boy and a cat and it was shit. Joan had seen it in an exhibition at a place called Gravelly Barn—’ Halliday broke off. ‘Do you want to know any of this?’

‘Not really. I’d like to know why you sacrificed your afternoon, though. Since it was a present for your husband’s mother, why didn’t he go and get it?’

Halliday snorted. ‘Who buys your mother’s Christmas presents? And birthday, and Mother’s Day – you or your wife?’

‘My wife. But she’s not a radical feminist.’

‘Really, Conkers? I’m astonished to hear that.’

‘You are a feminist. An obsessive one. Which is why, for Josh Norbury, I don’t believe your alibi. No way you’d do that: go and collect a picture for a man’s mother when he could do it himself. You wouldn’t be married to the kind of bloke who’d ask you to.’

‘Oh, God, you’re serious, aren’t you?’ Halliday groaned softly into her tea. ‘I’m a feminist, yes. That doesn’t mean every single action I perform is a feminist action.’

‘Do as I say, not as I do? Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite?’

‘Wow! I think you might be right! Am I doing feminism all wrong, do you think? Please, advise me and let me learn from you, a misogynist shitbag.’

‘That one struck home, didn’t it?’ Sellers chuckled. ‘What’s the point in calling homicide “femicide” when you run errands for your husband like a skivvy? Shouldn’t you try to practise what you preach? Especially when it’s so easy. If you’d told him to sort out his mum’s present himself, he’d have done it, wouldn’t he?’

Halliday stared at him as if she wanted him dead.

‘Maybe you’re too scared to rock the boat at home, and all that fighting talk in Lifeworld’s just a way to vent your frustration. It must be easier to assert yourself in print than in real life.’