“Stop,” said Ramsay. He held up his right hand, the tips of his first finger and thumb almost touching, as if he was holding an invisible match. “I’m this close—this close—to arresting you now. Ms. Falkner, I don’t think you realize the trouble you’re in. Perverting the course of justice is not like crossing the road when the little red man is showing. Judges don’t like it. They see it as a kind of treason and they send people to prison for a surprisingly long time. Do you understand?”

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

“Of course it was you.”

“It doesn’t make sense in any possible way,” I said. “If it was me, why would I tell you about the company, give you the address and then take away the evidence before you got there?”

“Because it didn’t say what you said it said.”

I stopped for a moment, confused. “But getting rid of the evidence doesn’t help. It just makes it worse. Why would I do that? And give my name while I was at it?”

Ramsay gave a snort that was almost a laugh but then his expression turned serious and when he spoke it was quietly and deliberately. “If a jury was informed of everything else you’ve been up to, I don’t think they’d have difficulty swallowing one extra piece of insanity.”

There was more before the two of them left and none of it was very pleasant. Ramsay said that in the near future I would be interviewed under caution, which meant there was the possibility of an imminent criminal charge, and that I ought to have a lawyer present. He also muttered about having a psychological evaluation and that it might be my best hope. As they were about to leave he regarded me with a mixture of bafflement and pity. “I felt sorry for you,” he said, “but you don’t make it easy. I don’t understand what you’re up to. But we’re on your case. Don’t piss us around.”

As soon as they were gone, as soon as the car had pulled away, I changed into more businesslike clothes. Half an hour later I was at the office of Pike and Woodhead, whose entrance was in a small road, almost an alley, just off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A middle-aged woman was sitting at a desk just inside the door. I asked her if a Mr. Hatch was in.

“Darren? Yes, he’s around somewhere.”

I asked if I could see him and a few minutes later he appeared, not, as I had expected, in a pin-striped suit but in jeans and a Fred Perry T-shirt. I hadn’t met him when I had delivered the chair. I had left it at Reception, signed a piece of paper, taken a copy and left.

“You deal with deliveries?” I said.

“You got one?”