Waterhouse says, “If you’re wondering why you’re here, it was your car that gave you away. We were trawling CCTV for anything unusual around Elmhirst Road. Do you want to have a stab at telling us what we saw?”

All right, Nicki. This is the bit you’ve prepared, your chance to come across as honest. This should be easy.

“I don’t know where your CCTV cameras are positioned, so I don’t know what you saw, but I’ll tell you what I did,” I say. “I set off midmorning in the car to go to my children’s school. My son had left his gym bag behind and he needed it for the afternoon. My normal route takes me down Elmhirst Road, but there was a delay on my side of the road. The traffic was slow, and I could see police officers farther up, stopping drivers. I realized that if I carried on up Elmhirst, they’d get a good look at me and my car, and I couldn’t let that happen.” I swallow. All true, so far.

“Because?” Waterhouse asks. He shuffles his chair closer to the table.

Calm. Focused. You can do this.

“For the past week or so, my car has been missing its side-view mirror on the passenger side. If I’d carried on along Elmhirst Road and they’d stopped me, there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen it—seen that it was gone, I mean.” I sigh. “I know I should have taken it straight to the garage. I know I shouldn’t have been driving without a side mirror, but I’m so busy all the time . . . I thought I could get away with it, just for a few days. Obviously I would have gotten the car fixed eventually. I mean, soon. I would have done it later this week, probably.”

It’s not exactly a lie; it’s an old true story, chronologically enhanced for present-day purposes and with my current car replacing my old Renault Laguna in the lead role. I was too busy to go to the garage immediately, even though I didn’t have children then. And I drove far more carefully for those six weeks than I ever have before or since, to compensate for my car’s deficiency.

In a last-minute burst of defiance, I add, “It is actually perfectly possible to drive safely without one side mirror.”

“Spare us your theories about road safety,” Waterhouse says. “You didn’t want to get too close to the police in your nonroadworthy car, so what did you do?”

“Turned around and went back the way I came. I drove to school via the Heckencotts—”

“Which school?” Sam asks. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Freeth Lane.”

“Thanks. Carry on.”