Suddenly, he remembered Bea’s face, her smug calm as he was taken away, and how surprised he’d been that she didn’t seem worried. He’d been much more worried about her at the time, but now he couldn’t forget it. Usually, she was more likely to jump to conclusions about racism in the police force, and corrupt authorities, and he was the one trying to pacify her. Why had she been so happy to see him go? His thoughts were racing so fast he couldn’t focus. Dufour said something else, and Karen turned to him again, her eyes cast down. Two small red patches had appeared on her cheeks.

‘He says: your wife woke up in the middle of the night, and you weren’t there.’

He remembered. ‘OK, yes, I did get up for a – I went to the bathroom, and I went downstairs for some water.’

The other detective, Luis, was writing quickly, leaning the pad on his stocky thigh. It was archaic. The guy could be writing anything. Dan reminded himself he wasn’t under suspicion. He was helping them with their enquiries. But he didn’t know what they were enquiring about. He felt a vertiginous drop, and held back fear.

‘Look, tell him I woke up for, like, five minutes, OK? I got a glass of water, and went back to bed. When I got into bed, Bea said Where’ve you been? I remember it, but it was five minutes. Tops. OK?’

She listened, gravely nodding, then translated, and Dan waited for Dufour’s friendly shrug, the Oh, that explains it then, but he had moved on to something else.

‘He’s asking how you felt about Mr Adamson,’ said Karen.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Alex Adamson.’

‘Yeah, I know. But “felt about him” – like, in what way?’

Dufour shrugged. Dan thought he’d seen enough of French shrugging.

‘I liked him,’ said Dan. ‘Bea and him were very close.’

Dufour responded immediately. Dan realised he understood. Maybe he just didn’t want to speak English, and was only using Karen to translate his questions. He thought maybe they all spoke English, and with the thought, all the men in the room became eavesdroppers. It had been comforting, the sense of being overseen, but now it was the opposite. He needed to relax. He was thirty years old. He was a professional. He went to work in a suit. He wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy, crying for his mother in the Peckham cop shop, the mother he would lie to about it later, so as not to upset her, and get in trouble for staying out.

‘How was your childhood?’ asked Karen.

‘What?’ Dan spluttered – it was so weird she asked that.

She looked back at Dufour, for confirmation, and he said something else.

‘He says: were you poor, growing up?’

‘Poor, like, money?’ said Dan stupidly.

Karen nodded gravely. ‘Yes, money.’