He was just being polite. I don’t think I had a choice. WPC Darby brought me a newspaper and another cup of tea, and I flicked through the pages without taking anything in. It was almost an hour before two more detectives, a man and a woman, came in and sat opposite me. WPC Darby left but DI Carter stood to one side, leaning against the wall. The man introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Ramsay and his colleague as Detective Inspector Bosworth. She opened her bag and took out a bulky machine, which she placed on the table between us. She loaded it with two cassette tapes and switched it on. She said the date and time and identified everybody present, then sat back.

“The reason we’re being so formal,” said Ramsay, “is that you have already made admissions that lay you open to being charged with a criminal offense. And that’s just to be getting on with. So, it’s important that, before you say anything else, we make clear that you’re entitled to legal representation. If you don’t have a lawyer, we can obtain one for you.”

“I’m not bothered,” I said.

“Does that mean you don’t want a lawyer?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “No.”

“And you need to understand that anything you say in this and later interviews can be used as evidence and introduced in court.”

“Fine,” I said. “So how can I help you?”

The two looked at each other as if they didn’t know quite what to make of me.

“For a start,” said Ramsay, “you can tell us what the hell you were playing at, leaving a crime scene, interfering with a police inquiry?”

“It’s a complicated story,” I said.

“Then you’d better start telling it,” said Ramsay.

I had promised myself I would leave nothing out, make no attempt to justify myself or explain things away. I’m not used to telling stories and I started from the murder and worked backward, and in other directions as well, when necessary, or when I remembered something that seemed relevant. When I first said I’d been working for Frances under an assumed name DI Bosworth’s jaw dropped, like that of a character expressing surprise in a silent movie.

“I’m sorry,” said Ramsay. “I didn’t quite get that. What did you say?”

“It’s probably easiest if I tell you everything and then you ask questions about what you don’t understand.”