“I’ve been thinking of buying one,” he said. “Somewhere to go that’s out of the house. To get back to what I was saying, you’ll notice I’m asking you these questions informally, not taking an official statement. If I had been, it might have seemed I was trying to catch you out.”

“How?”

“We’ve been talking to various people.” He took a notebook from his pocket and flicked through several pages. “Including people in your husband’s office. Mr. Kelly, for instance, who was in the office that day doing a software update. He said that early on the afternoon of the day your husband died, he heard one end of an argument on the phone between your husband and someone Mr. Kelly assumed was you. Perhaps it wasn’t you.”

“Fergus said that?”

“Yes.”

“He’s right. It was me.”

“You said you hadn’t had an argument.”

“It wasn’t an important argument.”

“What was it about?”

“Something completely trivial.” Ramsay didn’t reply. He was clearly wanting to hear more. “It was about him coming home late.”

“You had an argument about that?”

“All our arguments were about trivial things. Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve still got the text he sent me afterward.” I picked up my mobile phone and scrolled down to one of the messages I hadn’t been able to delete. I handed the phone to Ramsay. He extracted some reading glasses laboriously from his top pocket and put them on.

“‘Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Im a stupid fool.’ That’s a lot of sorries. Do you mind if I take this?”

“It’s my phone. I need it.”

“It’ll be returned to you. Pay-as-you-go phones are available in the meantime.”

“What do you want it for?”

Ramsay put the phone in his pocket. “A cynical person would say that your husband doesn’t say what he’s sorry about. He could be sorry that he’s been unfaithful.”

“He wasn’t unfaithful.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Your wine will be getting warm.”

“I’m not cynical,” he said. “I’m on your side. I know you’ve worked hard to incriminate yourself, but you haven’t done a good enough job. That crash, with your husband and Milena Livingstone. You couldn’t have done that on your own.”

“Why do you say on my own?”

“No reason. Besides, who would you do it with? I’ve talked to her husband as well. Her widower. We don’t really say ‘widower,’ do we? I’ve always wondered why. He didn’t seem like someone to arrange a murder. He seemed more like the tolerant type. If you see what I mean.”

“If you mean do I agree that he didn’t kill his wife, I do.”

“And your husband.”

“Well, of course.”

“And then there’s Frances Shaw.”

“I didn’t kill Frances!”