‘Oliver Halliday – that’s whose recipe book Angela McCabe bought Josh Norbury. Other half of Sondra.’

‘Obviously. Who else was it going to be but the Hate Preacher’s husband, if you’re this excited about it?’

‘You don’t sound excited.’

‘I’m not.’

Sellers felt winded for the second time in one day. He’d made a fool of himself yet again.

‘The reason I’m not excited is that we’re there now. We have our answer, thanks to you. We’ve got Billy.’

‘What?’

‘You ought to understand the thrill-of-the-chase factor better than anyone. It’s being close to getting there that’s exciting. Once you know all the answers …’ Simon sighed. ‘Obviously we still need to get the confession, but that’s a different kind of challenge.’

‘All the answers? I don’t know any of the answers.’

‘Really? Think about what you’ve just told me.’

‘But … So you reckon it’s definitely significant? I mean, people all over the country have got Oliver Halliday’s book. It was everywhere when it first came out. There’s probably a copy in my kitchen. Stacey buys more food books than she makes meals these days.’ Sellers’ new healthy eating regime had apparently put his wife off cooking.

‘So? Two, two hundred or twenty thousand people might own copies of Oliver Halliday’s book. It’s irrelevant.’

‘Okay.’ Sellers ran his free hand through his hair. ‘Okay, so … who’s Billy, then?’ Everything had been pointing towards Isobel Sturridge, but Sellers couldn’t see how Isobel could have anything to do with this recipe book.

So who could Billy possibly be?

‘Lisa Norbury?’ said Sellers tentatively. ‘The only other two people associated with this copy of Oliver Halliday’s book are dead: Angela McCabe and Josh, but … I know Lisa’s not a killer.’

‘So do I.’

‘Then who?’ said Sellers. ‘Sondra Halliday? Oliver Halliday himself?’

The silence in his ear sounded more dead than alive.

‘Simon?’

Had he cut him off?

The bastard. He’d gone.

Chapter 18

18

from Origami by Kim Tribbeck

Saturday, 17 January 2015

I stare at the screen of my laptop, unable to believe what I’m seeing and what it means.

Jolly voices chirp from my TV in the corner of the room: a woman in a red blazer and brown corduroy trousers and a small, bespectacled man in a yellow shirt. They seem happy about something I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t give a toss about if I’d paid attention. I reach for the TV remote control and mute them. Normally I like the company of two-dimensional screen people and the loneliness-alleviating background noise, but now I need to think without distraction, because if this means what I think it means …

No way. It can’t be that I tried something and it worked. Can it?