‘Why don’t you say something nice about me?’ I muttered.

‘Well, if he didn’t do it, who did?’ Cara asked.

‘I suppose that’s what I’m going to have to find out for you, like I did last time. And maybe you should think about that. Another false arrest coming so soon after the last one isn’t going to look too good on your CV, is it!’

‘There is no one else, Hawthorne,’ Cara sneered. ‘You can investigate if you want to, but you’d better make it quick because as soon as we have the DNA evidence, I’m going to fall on him like a ton of bricks.’

‘You’ve definitely got the physique for it, Cara.’

‘Get out of here. Both of you.’

There was a taxi waiting for us outside the custody centre. I expected we’d be going back to Farringdon, but to my surprise it took us past my flat and on to Hawthorne’s place at Riverside View. I used the journey to tell him what had happened in the last few days – at least, from my own perspective. What I described was pretty much everything I have written so far here. Hawthorne said little. He was looking away from me, gazing out of the window, and I wondered if he was even listening. But that was his way. When he interrogated people, he often seemed to be distracted, although there was never a single word, not even a nuance, that he missed.

We sat down in the kitchen where we had met a few days ago and he made me a cup of coffee. It felt very good to be sitting there, in spotless surroundings, in my own clothes, acting normally, with nobody screaming or praying next door. Better still, Hawthorne was on my side. At least, he seemed to be.

He brought the coffee over. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘I’m much better,’ I admitted. ‘Thanks for coming to Tolpuddle Street.’

‘I couldn’t leave you in there on your own. It’s not a nice place, is it!’

‘You can say that again. Have you got a biscuit?’

‘No.’

I’d barely eaten for a day and a half.

Hawthorne was sitting opposite me and I felt him examining me, his eyes boring into mine. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘There’s something I’ve got to know,’ he said. He grimaced. ‘Did you do it? Did you kill Harriet Throsby?’

‘What?’ I almost choked on my coffee.

‘I hate to ask you, mate. I mean, I don’t want to be nasty about this, but it’ll be a waste of both our time if it turns out you did actually stick in the knife.’

‘How can you possibly think that!’ I struggled to find the words. ‘After what you said to Grunshaw …’

‘I had to say that to get you out of there. I had to make it sound like I believed you. But the truth is, I wouldn’t blame you. Harriet was really nasty about your play.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe in future you should stick to books.’