They took me to a new Spanish bar in Camden Town where we ate tapas with little glasses of dry sherry, then had more tapas and more sherry, and then we got into a discussion about what our favorite drink was. Someone said a dry martini and Mary said it should be served with a twist of lemon peel and Gwen said it should be with an olive. So we had one with the lemon followed by one with the olive. I was given the casting vote as to which was the winner, so I chose the lemon peel and we had to have another of those to celebrate.

It was at that point, as I was taking a delicate sip of my third dry martini, that Gwen asked how I was. Even in my alcoholic stupor, I realized that this was what the whole evening had been leading up to. My messages on their mobiles must have sounded terrifyingly abject and they had clearly decided something needed to be done.

“I’m all right,” I said.

“No,” said Mary. “This is us.”

I thought for a moment and I—or perhaps it was the gin on my behalf—saw things with a new clarity.

“I am, really,” I said. “In a way. There was something wrong with me, but now it’s different. It’s the things around me. I know you’re getting tired of Widow Falkner and her endless tales of woe, so I’ll give you the short version.”

Well, fairly short. I told them the events of the previous days in as compressed a way as I could manage. At the end of it, Mary and Gwen exchanged an alarmed, confused glance. I drained my glass. “I mean, what would be the point of giving the police an alibi that I knew wasn’t true, then removing the evidence before they could check it? I mean, what’s the point of that? How would you explain it?”

There was a pause.

“There must have been a mix-up of some kind,” said Gwen.

I was now having to concentrate very hard to speak, let alone think. “I keep trying to think of logical explanations,” I said, “but all I come up with are illogical ones. For example, I thought that maybe one of you went down there to check whether the alibi was right, found it wasn’t and took it away to protect me. But you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“Of course not,” said Mary.

“We should have had margaritas,” said Gwen. “Martinis are too dangerous.”

“You can’t have margaritas here,” I said. “Margaritas are Mexican. They’d be offended.”

“But martinis are even foreigner,” said Mary. “More foreign.”

We came out of the bar as it was closing and the cold air seemed to clear my head immediately. I hugged my friends and thanked them.