I heard it on the radio as I drove up the A21, heading to London, the traffic already thickened and snarled. I had spent the night in a Travelodge beside the motorway, planning my next move, having bought a toothbrush and some pants in a large supermarket en route, where no one would remember me. The news was not a surprise, not really, but all the same my hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I had to focus to stay in my lane.

James Conway was dead. The short news item indicated that neighbours had called the police to investigate a seeping smell of gas, and when they broke into the apartment they found ‘Mr’ Conway – he would have hated that – dead from carbon monoxide inhalation. They suspected a very old gas fire in the flat was the culprit.

I didn’t care that he was dead. Before I left the place, I’d made him tell me everything Patrick had cooked up. He was happy to, boasting about his expertise. ‘But first the money.’

With my gloves still on, I’d laid an envelope with a cheque inside on the arm of the filthy sofa. I didn’t have enough in the account to cover it, but that wouldn’t matter. ‘Now please. I need to know.’

He laughed. ‘Not like you’re going to the police, I s’pose. It’s very hard to fake your own death, you see,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s no body, because you’re lost at sea or something. That’s how Canoe Man did it, you know that fella who dreamed it up for life insurance. But there’s no sea around here, is there? Anyway, the police are wise to that play now.’ So they had to come up with something better. Something more creative. They had to wait until someone died in the hospital who was around Patrick’s age.

‘But why did you help him?’ I’d asked, bewildered. I was struggling to take it in, a huge part of me insisting that it wasn’t true. ‘He was the one who owed you money, or so you say. Why risk so much?’

He’d sighed, letting me smell his vile sour breath. Memories surfaced, unwanted memories. My mother, lurching across the room. Eleanor, you stupid slut. Get out of my sight.

‘The thing about your Paddy is, he’s good at holding on to secrets, isn’t he?’ Present tense again. It felt so bizarre to hear that. ‘He knew things about people in the hospital. Surgeries they’d slipped up in. Women they had on the side. He did the expenses, you see, filed the insurance claims. He knew everything.’