‘So why didn’t Dexter tell me that? He specifically said you had the day off. He would’ve known that I knew that wasn’t true. He would’ve said something along the lines of not being able to say anything, maybe a little white lie in telling me he wasn’t sure where you were but he’d check and get you to give me a call. But no, he said you weren’t in that day.’

‘I wasn’t. I was out of town. I told you that.’

‘This isn’t a game of word play, Caz.’ There was a moment of silence before Mark spoke again. ‘Who’s the guy in the photo?’

‘What guy?’

‘There’s a photo of you with your arm round some guy in the pub on Wednesday night. The night you got home late.’

‘Where did you get that idea from?’

‘It’s on your phone. You left it unlocked last night when you went to get a drink. It was right there on the screen.’

Caroline closed her eyes. Her brain hadn’t been functioning properly for a while, and yesterday was when she’d started to really feel the tiredness kicking in. In her defence, there hadn’t been anything to hide. Walsh was a witness at best, suspect at worst. She had no reason to keep the photo from Mark, but she knew exactly how he’d react if he saw it, and now she’d been proven right.

‘You shouldn’t have been looking. You’re meant to trust me. And if you must know, he’s a suspect in the case I’m working on. But you didn’t hear that from me.’

‘I’m meant to believe that, am I? You’re having midweek drinks, smiles and hugs with a suspect?’

Caroline sighed. ‘Mark, I’m really tired. There’s a lot more to it than that. At the moment he’s a sort of witness, but we’re trying to get close to him to get more information.’

‘Yeah. Very close, by the looks of things.’

‘Look, it’s policing. There’s a lot of stuff I can’t talk about and a lot of strategies that probably don’t make sense if you’re not involved.’

‘And cuddling up to your suspects in the pub is one of them?’

‘I wasn’t cuddling up to him. He used to be a professional rugby player, I pretended I was a supporter and wanted a photo. What you’re seeing there is me doing a bloody good job, might I add, of being an enthusiastic fan of his and nothing else. What, did you think I was having an affair and getting people to take photos of us together in public? Is that really what you take me for?’

‘Caz, I don’t know what to think anymore. You’ve changed so much recently.’