I quickly put my phone away as Lottie returns to the table, but she has clocked me.

‘Who was that? Surely, not Mr Dawkins? If it is, he’s certainly keen.’

‘No, it was just Georgie, asking about the play,’ I say as we make our way out of the restaurant.

I feel bad for lying to Lottie. I don’t even know why I did it, exactly. I just know I want to keep him to myself. Just for a while.

3. Now

West Hampstead Police Station

I can see Georgie through the glass panel. She is pacing up and down the corridor, her phone clasped to her ear. When the police told me I had to go to the station to be interviewed under caution she totally lost it. I’d never seen her like that before. My calm older sister suddenly screaming and shaking her fist, remonstrating with the officers as they led me to the car, telling them that they had made a dreadful mistake, that my name was Vanessa Adams, not Iris Lawson, and that I had nothing to do with the murder of Geoffrey Rivers.

If only that were true, I think to myself, as DS Alan Bains shuffles in his seat on the other side of the table, his arms folded across his chest.

‘So, Miss Adams,’ he says, fixing me with a stare so cold I flinch. ‘Now that we have ascertained your real name we would like to continue to interview you under caution. Do you understand what that means?’

I nod my head, remembering what I was told when I got here: the fact that I have not been arrested, that this is a voluntary interview, that I am assisting the police with their enquiries. It all sounded a lot less terrifying than I had imagined but then, as we sat down at the desk, Bains had stated the phrase that I’d only ever heard on cop shows – You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence – and I had started to shake. Defence. Court. Evidence.

‘As you have now consulted with your legal representative,’ continues Bains, gesturing to the elderly man beside me, Frank Solomon, a family friend of Jack’s, ‘we can commence the interview.’

I glance back through the glass panel and see Georgie, still talking on her phone. When I’d been placed into the back of the police car she had run up to the window and mouthed to me that she would get in touch with Frank, and that all would be fine. ‘He’s the very best,’ she’d said, her lips visibly trembling. ‘He’ll get you out of there.’