This room we’re in now has an unbreakable glass panel on the window with that black squiggly thread going through it. Beyond the glass a goon is patrolling the lino in his polyester uniform and the Rhino waits. There are no other windows. The room smells faintly of Josh’s feet and Monster Munch. Essentially it is a police interrogation room complete with recording equipment at the side of the table. I am on one side, DS Allen and Dr. Robinson are on the other, and between us there is a screen. DS Allen seems at home here; he has loosened his collar and taps the lid of a small cardboard box in front of him. I am not at home here; they have handcuffed me to my chair.

I watch him as he leans forward to turn the recording equipment on.

There is nothing remarkable about DS Allen. He is pushing sixty I’d say, grey hair, red face, slightly bloated, drinks too much. If there were a policeman production line, he would roll out.

No, I take that back, there is something remarkable about him: he has a strangely breathy voice that sounds like the hand dryer in the visitor’s loo. Everything he says seems a bit painful for him. I know the feeling. We could have a rasp-off.

‘Beginning of session with Mrs. Constance Mortensen. Present in the room with her are Dr. Robinson, her forensic psychiatrist, and myself, Detective Sergeant Allen. The time is 14.55 and I am about to show Mrs. Mortensen footage from CCTV cameras on Lower Bridge Road from the night of Thursday November 16th.’

With that he turns on the screen. After a dull stretch of black-and-white footage of an empty road in the dead of night, a car whizzes by. I know nothing about cars but it does look familiar. DS Allen pauses the tape, rewinds and zooms in. ‘Is that your car, Mrs. Mortensen?’

It could be, I can see that now. I squint at the screen. Then he zooms in on the number plate.

‘Yes,’ I say. I’m good with numbers. He comes up to the driver, who is in white, blurry-faced, leaning forward clutching the wheel, looking like something from one of those zombie shows Josh watches. I can’t see anyone else in the car, only darkness.

‘And is that you?’

Fuck. It is me.

‘It might be.’

He zooms in a little more. I look ghastly. I have a vague recollection of it now. I nod.

‘Yes or no, please,’ says the hand dryer.

‘Yes.’