‘It wasn’t a phone and a book Linzi had with her on the lasagne day, it was her Kobo and a book. Miff confirmed it. The witness got that detail wrong. Linzi had gone to the café for lunch that day with Harry Potter the paper book and also with Harry Potter the e-book downloaded onto her Kobo. That was why Miff questioned her having the same thing twice – why bring two copies of the same book to read at lunch? That was Miff’s point. Why not only bring one, when they’re both the same? And Linzi had replied that no, actually, they weren’t both the same – the e-book was worse. She couldn’t say how, but it wasn’t like reading a proper book. She hated the Kobo that she’d kept and tried to use to please Rhian, and she’d ended up taking the paper book with her everywhere she went because, no matter how hard she tried to read on the Kobo, she still hated it, and she always ended up ditching it in favour of the paper version.’

‘Unbelievable,’ Kim Tribbeck muttered.

‘Miff said, “If you don’t want it, I’ll have it!” but Linzi was determined to keep it. How could she give it away? What would she say to Rhian? Miff admitted she might have tried to persuade Linzi a little too forcefully, and Linzi ended up leaving the café – no doubt annoyed to be pressured in that way – and leaving her lasagne uneaten. At which point, Miff – a very fat woman, as those of you who know her will confirm – sat down, ate the lasagne and pronounced it delicious, not as a smokescreen to cover up the café’s shameful lasagne problem, but simply because she was enjoying the lasagne.

‘So, there we are,’ said Simon, after a quick pause for breath. ‘We’ve got three pairs of victims, all connected to an unwanted e-reader given as a gift, an e-reader that’s kept by the recipient even though they don’t like or want it. And then we have our story, “The Dress”, and I quote again: “You would never have bought one for yourself, yet you bought one for Dolores here. And you accepted this gift, though you didn’t want it and would never have bought one for yourself … You acted against your own judgement and your own hearts … When our hearts are fully engaged in our actions, even the harmful ones, we are not beyond redemption. All hope is lost, however, when we are not infatuated, not helpless with desire, and yet still, from a position of clear-eyed objectivity, choose to behave in ways that promote evil.”