You’re right: I’m putting off telling you my secret. What if you hate me once you know? Actually, I’ve just remembered: I only care about your opinion because I know you all like me. You’re my select few. You’ve paid to come and see me, or to buy my book. That’s something I wish I could make people in my personal life do, to prove they’re really keen. Let them put their money where their mouths are.

I’d make an excellent hooker, appreciating payment as I do. All the men who’ve had sex with me over the years and not paid – not a moment went by when I didn’t doubt their level of commitment.

Right, here goes. And if you stop liking me once you’ve heard my secret, I’ll stop giving a shit what you think, so that’ll be easy.

My new detective friends liked me more once I told them, but that’s because they can only hold in their minds two categories of person: Not A Murderer and A Murderer. As soon as I explained, they thought, ‘Ah, yes – an unscrupulous bitch but Not A Murderer’. I was flattered. It was like getting into the top stream for English all over again.

Okay, so before I start, you need to understand the layout of the building where I live. It’s four storeys tall, two rooms wide – one on either side of the front door or the stairs – and only one room deep. They’re big rooms, but still, as houses go, it’s an oddity. Gabe and I nicknamed it Flat Stanley when we first bought it.

The part I inhabit, the main house, is three floors: ground, first and second. Then there’s the lower-ground-floor flat, which in the past has been part of the house, but it can also be self-contained. At the moment it’s rented out to a doctor from Copenhagen, Nils Danius. He and I hardly speak, though whenever we do I wind him up by insisting his name means ‘Do not resuscitate’ in Danish.

The lower-ground-floor flat has separate access from the street. It has its own front door, reached by descending ten or so steps from pavement level, so it can easily work as a separate residence, but only if the wooden door between the house and the cellar remains closed and locked.

You can lock it from either side. Since Nils Danius took up residence, there has been no key in the lock. He doesn’t have access to a key. I do. If I wanted to, I could open the door and invade his territory, but I don’t. I keep the key tactfully far away from the door, to remind myself that, for the time being, I mustn’t even think about going in there. Not that I want to.