I count and name police people to keep myself calm and steady: Simon, Charlie, Gibbs, Sam Kombothekra, profiler Kerensa something-or-other, the hilariously named, bare-bulb-headed DI Proust with his horrible jellyfish-like skin, a grinning fat guy with excessive sideburns whose name I’ve forgotten … Then there’s the one from London, with a face that suggests someone’s rammed a pencil up his arse and he’s determined to keep it there. Dunning – that’s it. Or is that the one from Bournemouth who rolls his eyes unprovoked, like it’s a nervous tic? He has the look of a serial killer more than anyone else in the room, come to think of it.

‘Thanks to everyone for turning up,’ Simon Waterhouse mumbles like a tongue-tied schoolboy pushed forward by a well-meaning teacher on speech day.

‘We all know why we’re here, so … I’m going to kick off by reading you Sondra Halliday’s latest column.’

He’s wrong. I don’t know why I’m here, apart from curiosity, and because Isobel Sturridge told me I had to be. But Simon allowed me to come – encouraged it, even, without explaining why. Could his reason for wanting me here be the same as Isobel’s?

Does Liam know why he’s here? I try to look at him without letting him see me. He looks like a stranger disguised as somebody I used to have sex with.

‘As Billy Dead Mates knows, Halliday has already devoted one column to writing him an open letter,’ Simon goes on. ‘Her column in Lifeworld this morning, which should have gone live in the last half hour, is also about Billy. It’ll be published in the new print edition of Lifeworld tomorrow. I have it with me, so …’ He looks up and surveys the room, apparently uncertain for a second. ‘As I said: I’ll read it to you.’

I swallow a laugh. Simon’s standing poker straight. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, gets ready to read from the screen. It’s like being on an aeroplane and being told you have to pay special attention to the safety announcements.

Sondra Halliday’s column about bibliophobia isn’t quite as dull as instructions about where to find the oxygen masks in the event of a crash, but it’s weirdly hard to follow: like an extract from an intense fight that you’ve missed the beginning of.

Those of us who aren’t police all seem equally bemused, apart from Isobel Sturridge. Her eerie smile is gone. She’s shaking and looks as if she’s about to cry.