‘My last client cancelled,’ the woman said. She sounded puzzled. Obviously, Ewan hadn’t told her he was expecting visitors.

‘This is Detective Inspector Hawthorne. He’s asking questions about Harriet Throsby. And this is Anthony. He wrote Mindgame.’

The woman stepped into the room and I saw her clearly. My first impression was that she was very beautiful, with black hair sweeping down past her shoulders. Slim, wearing a thin, grey mac belted at the waist. Brown eyes. She could have been Italian or Eastern European. She had spoken with a slight accent.

Then she turned her head towards Hawthorne and I saw the terrible scars on the side of her face, a red trelliswork that climbed from her neck to her forehead, darkening around one eye. It wasn’t a cold evening, but she was wearing gloves. I wondered what injuries they covered. I knew at once who she was and I was shocked.

‘This is Sonja,’ Ewan said.

Sonja Childs. Saint Joan.

‘You’re together …’ I muttered.

‘Yes.’

He had been responsible for her injuries and, subsequently, he had left his wife for her. I didn’t know what to say.

Hawthorne stepped in for me. ‘We won’t take up any more of your time,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.’

As far as I was concerned, we couldn’t get out quickly enough.

There were all sorts of questions buzzing in my head as we sat in the taxi on the way back to the City – Farringdon for me, Blackfriars for Hawthorne. Had Ewan Lloyd begun an affair while he was still married? Had he moved in with Sonja because he was in love with her or because he felt responsible for what had happened? I very much doubted that I would ever learn the answers. That was the awful thing about the world in which I found myself. Who had murdered Harriet Throsby? That was what we needed to know. It was all that mattered. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d hate to be a detective, seeing life between such narrow lines.

Neither of us spoke. Hawthorne was deep in thought. I was exhausted after a series of interviews that I was quite certain had taken us nowhere. Of course, I was quite wrong. Between them, the various suspects must have provided us with plenty of clues. The trouble was, I hadn’t seen any of them. I was hungry. I was wondering if there would be any food in the house or whether I would have to pop into the Nando’s chicken restaurant that had just opened round the corner from my flat. That was the full extent of my thoughts.

It was only as we headed south down York Way, coming in behind King’s Cross, that I remembered the text message that Hawthorne had received. I asked him about it.

‘It wasn’t good news,’ he said, trying to dismiss the subject.

‘What was it?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘That’s why I’m asking.’