He’s humouring me, but he’ll do it. ‘If you spot anything,’ I say, ‘you e-mail me before you show up here. I swear to God, if I find you under my bed tomorrow night, I’m gonna shoot your bony arse.’

‘Come here, but,’ Fleas says, wiping mayo off his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘I wasn’t joking about you needing better security. I had that alarm disabled in twenty seconds, tops; took me maybe another minute to get past the locks. And probably you already know this, but there’s some fella casing your road.’

The air in the room hardens, scraping at me like sandpaper. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I was wondering about that. Where’d you spot him?’

‘I took a stroll past the top of the road earlier on, just getting the feel of the place before I headed in. He was hanging about. Like he was waiting for someone, only I got the vibe – you know the vibe.’

‘Yeah.’ We all know the vibe. ‘Did you get a decent look?’

‘Tried. I went to bum a smoke off him’ – Fleas slumps forward, lets his face go junkie-vacant and whines through his nose, ‘“Here, bud, gis a fag?” ’ Back to normal: ‘Only he saw me coming and legged it. Could’ve been he just didn’t fancy the likes of me getting a hold of him, in fairness; but . . .’ Fleas shrugs. ‘Middle-aged fella, tall, medium build, pricey overcoat, big schnozz. That’s all I could see; he was well wrapped up, trilby and a scarf over half his face. Again, that’s fair enough, in this weather. But.’

‘Right. But.’ That rules out Creepy Crowley and his short arse and his slimy mac, anyway, which is a shame; I would’ve only loved a good excuse to mistake him for a stalker. ‘I think it’s this gaff he’s watching.’

Fleas nods, unsurprised. ‘I’d say so, all right. Got any clue who he’d be?’

I shake my head. ‘I was wondering about some gangster looking to warn me off. With that Courier photo, anyone could’ve waited outside work and followed me home. But if you figure the gang thing’s a dead end . . .’ Every time I say the word ‘gang’, it sounds stupider. I stretch out my legs farther along the sofa and try to get back some of that relaxed feel. It’s well gone. I can feel the sitting-room window behind my shoulder, the dark wind shoving up against it.

‘They’re a shower of bollixes, the Courier,’ Fleas says. ‘And just ’cause it’s not a gangster, that doesn’t mean it’s not the fella who killed your girl.’

‘I already thought of that. Do I look thick to you?’

‘I’m only saying. You’d want to get that alarm sorted rapid. Get PhoneWatch or something.’