‘Did you meet her at the theatre?’ Cara asked, ignoring my question.

‘Yes, briefly.’

‘And did you read her review?’

‘Yes. We all did. It was on Sky’s phone.’

‘That would be Sky Palmer.’

‘She played Nurse Plimpton.’ I wondered why I’d used the past tense. Perhaps it was because I knew that my play was dead too.

‘There was a party backstage at the theatre, is that right? Can you remember what time you left?’

Suddenly I was angry. ‘Look, I’m not going to answer any of your questions until you tell me what’s happened. Has Harriet Throsby been murdered?’

Cara looked shocked. ‘Whatever gave you that idea, Anthony?’

‘You said she’d written her last review. You said it would be published posthumously.’

‘She could have had a heart attack. She could have fallen under a bus.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’

Cara conceded the point. She let Mills tell me. ‘Harriet Throsby was stabbed to death in her home sometime around ten o’clock this morning. Can you tell us where you were at that time?’

‘I was in bed.’

‘Still in bed?’ Mills sounded disbelieving.

‘I went to bed late. I got up late.’

‘Could your wife verify that?’

For a moment I was confused as various thoughts crossed my mind at the same time. ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘She’d gone to work.’

‘When did she go to work?’

‘I can’t tell you that. I was asleep.’

Mills wrote down my answer, presumably word for word. He underlined something not once but twice. He was making it clear that he doubted what I was saying.

Cara took over. ‘Do you own an ornamental dagger?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. She had caught me unawares and looked at me sadly, as if I had just given myself away. She was waiting for me to continue and I realised the mistake I had made. ‘Actually, I do have a sort of dagger,’ I said. ‘Ahmet gave it to me last night.’

‘You’re referring to Ahmet Yurdakul, the producer of Mindgame?’

‘Yes. It was a first-night present. He gave one to everyone.’ I stared. ‘Are you saying that Harriet was stabbed with one of the daggers?’

Again, I received no answer. That was Cara’s technique. She wanted me to know that she was in control. ‘Can you describe the dagger?’ she asked, sweetly.

‘All the daggers were the same. They were silver. About this long …’ I showed her with two fingers. ‘And there were some words on the blade. “Is this a dagger …?”’

‘I would have thought that was pretty obvious,’ Mills said.

‘It’s a quotation from Macbeth,’ I explained. ‘“Is this a dagger which I see before me?” Ahmet had produced the play in a castle somewhere in Yorkshire and he had some left over.’

‘I don’t suppose your dagger had any distinguishing features?’ Cara asked. She sounded completely reasonable and it should have warned me that she had constructed a trap into which she was gently leading me.