‘There was a man there that night who gave me a small white book with some words from a poem in it. I didn’t mention it to you at the time. Then, the day my grandmother died, I found out that Billy Dead Mates is in the habit of giving books like that to his victims shortly before killing them. Liam? Are you still there?’

‘Is there a reason why you’re telling me all this?’

‘The police have found the man who gave me the book. He’s told them he saw a woman trying to take something from my handbag, and he saw the white book drop to the floor – and so he picked it up and handed it to me, assuming she’d pulled it out of my bag. In fact, she was trying to put it in there. This man also told the police about another man who was there that night, lurking nearby, who witnessed the same thing.’

Silence.

‘The man he described was you, Liam. And the woman trying to plant the white book in my bag was your sister, Isobel.’

I wait. And wait. ‘Well?’

‘Well what? You didn’t ask me a question.’

‘Was your sister there that night? Did you see her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see her trying to do something to my handbag? Because that’s what this man’s account suggests.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why the fuck didn’t you say anything to me?’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘I didn’t … Jesus Christ, Liam! You see your sister with her hand in my bag and you say nothing?’

I can’t see him, but I hear the shrug in his voice when he says, ‘If she’d taken anything, I’d have stopped her. The other guy was watching her, she saw him and left immediately, empty-handed. There was no harm done. Why would I say anything?’

‘Because … any normal human being would!’

‘I find it stranger that you didn’t tell me a man had given you a book with nonsensical words in it.’

I squeeze my eyes shut and listen to my heartbeat in my ears until the urge to scream ‘Fuck off!’ has subsided.

‘When you came to meet me that night, did you know your sister would be there?’

‘No.’

‘So you were surprised to see her?’

‘Very.’

‘And surprised to see her rifling through my bag?’

‘That surprised me less.’

‘Really? Is she in the habit of doing that?’

‘No. I often catch her doing things I don’t understand, though.’

‘Such as?’

‘The toilet roll.’

‘Pardon?’ I snap.

‘When a new roll needs putting on the thing attached to the wall, I just put it on. I don’t care how. Isobel usually takes it off and puts it on a different way, saying I’ve done it wrong. She insists it has to be … I don’t know how to describe it. Rolling down from over, not pulling from under.’