“I was going to say since it was parked at the back of the flat.”

“But they haven’t, Paul. Yes, Albert Moffat drove it back to Jim Nuttall’s after his delivery to Sunderland the following day, and you say you were with him, but since then nobody but Mr. Nuttall has used it. We checked. Albert’s and Nuttall’s fingerprints were close to yours, but they didn’t overlap, they didn’t obliterate yours, and there was no blood on them. Nuttall’s so used to opening that van door, he probably grasps the same spot every time by habit. You, on the other hand, being shaken up, as I said, reached too far the wrong way and left a clear and well-protected print. There’s no way around it, Paul.”

“This is all just circumstantial. You can’t go to court with a case as flimsy as this.”

“Can’t we, Paul?” Annie turned over a sheet. “What about the pills?”

“What pills?”

“The ones in the bin bag you were trying to get rid of. We’ll be doing further analysis, but for the moment we have it on good authority that they’re flunitrazepam, more commonly known as Rohypnol, or roofies. Inadequate men give them to unsuspecting females to put them asleep before sex. When the girls wake up, their memories are vague. Sometimes they don’t even remember they’ve been raped. Is that what happened to you, Paul? Did women forget they’d had sex with you? Was it that forgettable? Did you give one of those pills to Mimosa and rape her. Did she forget? Or did she remember and taunt you with it?”

“Again, Detective, I shouldn’t have to tell you to give up the fishing expedition,” said Jessie Malton.

“Sorry.” Annie took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Sometimes when you go fishing you catch something. That’s not what you used them for the other night, though, is it? Sex. That time you slipped one to Albert and he went out like a light after all he’d had to drink. You’d been carefully pacing yourself, pretending to keep up with his drinking, but you hadn’t had all that much, had you?”

Warner looked at Jessie Malton. “This is preposterous,” he said. “Can’t you stop them?”

“If you don’t wish to comment, then say so,” said Jessie Malton. Annie could hear her distancing herself from Warner.

“No comment,” he said.

“Let’s talk about the shoes, then,” Annie went on. “The Doc Martens you were about to get rid of at the recycling plant.”

Paul squirmed.