I looked at her, at the red hair, her black-rimmed glasses, the thin razor-cut of her mouth and my face flushed at the open contempt she displayed for me now that her worst, meanest thoughts had all been confirmed.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I asked you if James Caine ever gave you a phone,’ DCI Stoner said. ‘And do you remember what you told me?’

I nodded.

‘Yes,’ I said quickly, for the tape.

‘And now we find a second phone,’ he said, taking a breath, as if he had grown weary of my lies. ‘When you had denied having a second phone. When I had specifically asked you if James Caine gave you a second phone as he did to all his women.’

All his women.

I said nothing. My lawyer, family stalwart Kevin Steel sitting silent by my side, had coached me well. I knew what was at stake here, I knew exactly what DCI Stoner had planned for me.

Life imprisonment for conspiracy to murder.

Life imprisonment for perverting the course of justice.

It turns out – who knew? – that you do not even have to kill someone to get put away for so many years that your small child would become an adult and a stranger to you. You only have to think about it.

And they knew – the police knew – that I had thought about it.

‘If I ask you what you were planning to do with £10,000 in cash stashed in the ceiling with this second phone, are you going to lie to me yet again, Mrs Carver?’

And this was what I feared now. Not DCI Stoner. Not his snide, speccy sidekick. Not the law. Not jail. These were all concepts my mind could not quite grasp. But losing Marlon.

I could understand losing Marlon.

That seemed real. It even seemed likely.

‘Did you talk about killing James Caine with your husband?’ DCI Stoner said, and I hated him now, I hated him with that timid vehemence you feel for the thug who once pretended to be your friend, and then turns on you without warning. I saw that DCI Stoner wanted both of us, even if it was nothing like real justice, even if Christian had always been one step behind what everyone else knew, even if it was all untrue. Even if – and this was what made my nails dig into the palms of my hand until I saw the red ridges of blood rising up beneath the skin – it meant my son losing both his parents.

DCI Stoner did not give a damn about Marlon and the justice system did not care about our son.

And I wondered – where’s the justice in that?

‘You see it all the time in cases like this,’ DI Ure said, and I hated her too. Cases like this. ‘The woman turns against her lover. She then asks her partner for protection, revenge and restoration of her honour. It’s how couples often resolve their issues in cases like this – the woman plays the victim and the third party gets hurt.’