“Taking those photographs . . . that’s how it felt, like being in the middle of a sexual encounter. I got carried away. The risk of being seen by someone was part of it, yet at the same time I didn’t seriously believe there was a risk. And then I heard knocking on my car window and I looked up and there was a uniformed policeman standing there, staring at me in horror.” Saying these words out loud makes me feel as if I’m being shaken. “I panicked. It sounds melodramatic, but I thought my life was over: I’d be arrested and charged with flashing; I’d be on the front page of the local paper; my kids would be ridiculed at school; Adam would leave me; I’d have to go to court and get a criminal record for exposing myself in public . . . I lost it completely, became hysterical.”

“Not a pleasant experience,” Sergeant Zailer commiserates. Is she mad? Why isn’t she pointing at me and laughing? “You were unlucky. Silly, but unlucky.”

“No, I was very lucky. He let me off with a warning, even promised not to tell anyone. Poor man, he looked more embarrassed than I was. He was quite kind to me, once he saw how upset I was.”

Rather in the way that Sergeant Zailer is being kind to me now. And Adam.

There are some good people in the world. I need to devise a way of existing that acknowledges this. I can’t, mustn’t, base my whole life on hiding, on defending myself.

“It could have been so much worse,” I say. “Anyway, that encounter with the policeman brought me to my senses. I broke off contact with Gavin and resolved never to put myself or my family in that position ever again. Then, on Monday morning, I was driving along Elmhirst Road on my way to my children’s school and I saw the same policeman and just . . .” A shudder I can’t control passes through me. “I couldn’t help it. It felt like a catastrophe, like something out of a horror film—he was going to be there, waiting for me, around every corner I turned, for the rest of my life. I couldn’t drive past him, couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing me. It brought it all back: the humiliation of that moment, the fear. I couldn’t do it. I did a U-turn, and that’s the only reason you know I exist. Not because I had anything to do with Damon Blundy’s murder—because I got my tits out in a parking lot once and got caught.”

“We all do stupid things, Nicki,” says Sergeant Zailer. “You should have told DS Kombothekra and DC Waterhouse the truth when they interviewed you. It would have saved you a lot of stress.”