“After a few years.” Margo’s voice was a whisper. She’d never told anyone this before, so why now, sitting before this French reporter, spilling out her soul as if she was in a confessional? “It wasn’t his fault.” She said this defensively, angry at letting down her guard. “Oscar had a terrible childhood, no one ever believed him.”

“Believed what?”

Margo looked up from her lap, the calculating expression returning. “I’ll tell you what his demons were, but you’ll have to pay me.”

Josephine toyed with her pencil, spinning it around her long fingers like a drum majorette on parade. “I’m allowed to offer you £100, cash. If the story is good and we can lead on an insight into Oscar’s murder, then I can go higher.”

They sat like poker players facing each other across the table, and Margo cashed in first, as Josephine knew she would.

“Where’s the money? I’m not saying anything else until you give me a hundred quid.”

Josephine gave her a thin smile and stood up, leaving Margo on her own in the office. She looked around her in disinterest, then turned the computer monitor around to see what the reporter was working on. A mock-up of the next Courier edition filled the screen, a photograph of the minister with a headline announcing his murder. She hastily turned the monitor back, thinking hard.

She sat motionless until Josephine returned, counting out five £20 notes and placing them in front of her as if placing a bet. Margo pocketed the money and sneered at the reporter as though it was she who had won the round.

“Oscar was sexually molested as a young child. He told his teachers, his fucking useless parents and the polis. Nobody did anything about it. On top of that, Oscar was beaten, beaten hard by his dad and forced to spend hours alone with his fucking abuser. How do you think that affected him? Every week he was forced to go to his abuser and face every fucking perversion the old sod felt like doing, safe in the knowledge that he was untouchable. It wasn’t just the one old pervert either. Oscar told me he was taken to the orphanage and raped by people there, whilst the fucking nuns looked the other way. That’s why he turned out like he did, that’s why I stayed with him and tried to help him. I did my best.” Margo started crying, the tears leaving trails of black mascara in their wake. “I did what I fucking could for him. I loved him, I just wasn’t strong enough for him. No one was.”

Josephine handed over a box of tissues and Margo grabbed it angrily, dabbing at her eyes, too late to avoid smearing her make-up. “The bastard had it coming to him. I’m glad he’s dead!”

“Who, Oscar?”

Margo looked up at the reporter, contempt written across her tear-stained face. “Not Oscar, I loved him.” She spun the screen around, finger jabbing in accusation at the minister’s photograph. “The fucking pervert minister of St Cuthbert’s. He’s the bastard that ruined Oscar.”