‘You’re not involved in Brendan’s murder, so you have nothing to worry about,’ she reassured me. ‘My guess is that their only interest is in following up about the two fake coppers. Come the crunch, you can still give them the dongle. You would just have to say it turned up again, in some long-forgotten pocket.’

I telephoned Bailey and we arranged for me to attend at the station at 3pm that afternoon. We had an hour to kill, so we both popped into Grace’s flat for a cup of tea.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ was how she greeted me. Her attitude changed immediately when she saw I was with Emily. ‘Oh, hello, Emily, how nice to see you. I love the colour of your jacket by the way. It really suits you. I’ve got a trouser suit in the same green. Come through into the bedroom and I’ll show it to you.’

Grace ushered Emily into her bedroom and I went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. On the counter was a tin of peaches in light syrup that Grace had obviously tried to open but had failed. She had managed to get an inch or so of the lid open and then cut herself trying to prise it. There were a few drops of blood on the counter and a smear of blood on the abandoned tin opener. There was a crust of bread sticking out of the electric toaster that was toasted and had been left there to harden. I got the sense that Grace’s spirits must be low. Something was wrong. I was worried about the meaning of her lonely vigil a couple of nights earlier, and I felt a pang of guilt at leaving her alone the day before she was going to hospital for her operation.

I made the tea and waited on the sofa. I could hear Emily and Grace chatting and laughing in the bedroom. She was always one for putting on a brave face, or maybe it was simply that she preferred Emily’s company to mine. Lassoo lay down on the hallway floor immediately outside the bedroom door, his eyes fixed on me and with an expression that said, ‘I don’t think you’re needed here.’ When they came back through to the lounge Emily was wearing Grace’s lime-green trouser suit. She looked stunning and I could tell from her smile that she thought so too.

‘You must keep it,’ said Grace. ‘It’s no good to me anymore, and it’s probably four sizes too small. I would love you to have it.’

Emily made a decent fuss of refusing, but Grace was not to be knocked back and eventually she accepted the gift.