“It’s nonsense,” I say. “There’s no such thing as less dead, or more dead. There aren’t . . . levels of deadness! You’re either dead or you’re not.”

This can’t be happening. I can’t be in a too-small, too-hot interview room in a police station, answering questions in connection with the murder of Damon Blundy.

I clutch the tissue Detective Sergeant Sam gave me. It’s already soaked and shredded, falling apart. Taken from my home, bundled into a car by police without being told why, driven to a police station to be interrogated . . . It’s my worst nightmare.

I daren’t ask for another tissue, which means I have to stop crying. And shaking. I’m terrified of how guilty I must look, even though I’ve killed nobody and know nothing about any murder.

The police are trained to sniff out guilt, but not to distinguish one variety from another.

“Those words mean something to whoever killed Damon Blundy,” says DC Simon Waterhouse, the unfriendly one. “But you’re saying that’s not you, right?”

It’s the third time he’s asked me. “Look at me!” I sob, seeing myself as they must see me: a cowering wreck in a flower-print dress, tiny compared to the two of them.

And to Damon Blundy. I saw him on TV once. He looked tall and sturdy. The idea that I could overpower a man of his size is laughable. “Do I look as if I’d have the mental or physical strength to kill anyone?” I ask tearfully, praying that Waterhouse will see sense. “I didn’t know Damon Blundy! I’ve never met him! I only know what he looks like from seeing him on TV and in newspapers. I couldn’t have known him any less if I’d tried.”

The word “less” vibrates in my mind.

He is no less dead.

What is that? It reminds me of something, but I can’t think what; there’s a familiarity about it, an association in my mind: the faint, far-off tickling of a memory.

It’s gone before I can grasp it. If I’ve heard those words before—and I’m fairly certain I haven’t—then I’ve no idea where or when.

How are they linked to Damon Blundy’s death?

I mustn’t ask. It’s none of my business. I’m not a detective, not a murderer; uninvolved and uninformed is what I am, and I have to make sure I stay that way, which means conquering my curiosity, asking no questions.

“There are ways of killing that rely less on physical strength and more on psychological manipulation,” Waterhouse says woodenly. “How good are you at that?”

“Not as good as you! You’re trying to bully me into confessing to something I didn’t do.”