“Yes, I thought of that several days too late. I know it’s pathetic, but the mirror thing was the best I could come up with. God knows how I could make such a stupid mistake. I could have told literally any other lie and it would have been more convincing: I’d left my phone at home; I remembered I’d left the stove on—anything! Once I realized I’d screwed up, I hoped the CCTV might be so grainy that my mirrors wouldn’t stand out, but . . .” I shrug.

“Well, I’m sorry your lie didn’t work.” Sergeant Zailer smiles. She looks and sounds as if she might actually mean it. Unless it’s a tactic. It must be a tactic. “Is that why you called and asked to come in? You realized your story’d fall flat, so you decided to tell the truth?”

“No. I’ve just told you, I was pinning all my hopes on excessive graininess of CCTV film.” I smile back at her. “I decided to tell the truth because my mother threatened me.”

“Nicki,” Adam says urgently. I don’t know what he thinks can be done. The words are out and can’t be taken back. I don’t want to take them back. “She didn’t threaten you.”

“She did, actually.” To Sergeant Zailer, I say, “My husband refuses to believe my mother would stoop so low, but she did threaten me. She said if I didn’t tell Adam the truth, she would. So I told him—and having told him, there’s absolutely no reason not to tell you, especially when telling you has the added advantage of making it clear I’m not a murderer.”

“Go on,” says Sergeant Zailer.

I sigh. Even prepared as I am, this is not going to be pleasant. “I behaved suspiciously on Monday morning on Elmhirst Road—I’m not denying that. I did a U-turn rather than drive past a certain policeman, but . . . my reason for doing so had nothing to do with Damon Blundy, dead or alive. It was the policeman I wanted to avoid.”

“Why?”

“Because I was embarrassed and ashamed about something I’m still embarrassed and ashamed about—although now I can bear to face up to it, whereas on Monday morning, I didn’t feel I could. I just . . . saw that policeman, panicked and had to get away from him as quickly as I could.” I clear my throat, but the lump in it is still there. “I suppose the difference is that now I have no choice but to face up to it. All right. I had a cyber affair with a man called Gavin. Well, a man who told me he was called Gavin—I doubt it’s his real name. One feature of this . . . relationship, if you can call it that, is that I sent him photographs of myself. Some were more explicit than others.”

“Go on.”