My eyes stung.

‘I want to tell them the truth.’

‘The truth is the last thing you need,’ Kevin said. ‘Conspiracy to murder is when a person – or more than one person, such as you and Christian – decide to carry out a course of action that will result in the unlawful killing of another person.’

I felt like I wanted to tear the skin from my face. ‘But James Caine was driving me crazy. I was desperate. People say it all the time, don’t they? I will kill you. It was an emotional response, a natural human reaction, not conspiracy to murder!’

‘Look – it’s conspiracy to murder if you hire a hitman and he never comes anywhere near to doing it, OK? Try to understand that, Tara. Or if you pay him the money and the hitman decides not carry out the killing. It’s still conspiracy to murder. If they can make that stick – it’s not good. Do you understand?’

‘He’s not a hitman,’ I said. ‘He’s—’

Kevin raised a hand for silence.

‘Please, stop talking,’ he said. ‘And you’re right – people say it all the time. I’ll kill you. But here’s the difference between most people and you – because most people don’t have ten grand and a second phone in the ceiling and an ex-lover with his skull smashed in, OK? And all this stuff about James Caine being a monster – it just doesn’t work for you.’

I was stunned.

‘It doesn’t work for me? Why the hell not?’

‘Because it gives you more of a motive to kill him,’ Kevin said simply. ‘Or to get someone to do it for you.’

‘We’ve got your accomplice,’ DCI Stoner said when we went back to the interview room, starting to enjoy himself, it seemed. He glanced at DI Ure. ‘How many CCTV cameras in this country, Gillian?’

‘Oh, lots,’ DI Ure said. ‘Too many, really. Sometimes you have to wade through two hundred hours of CCTV for the ten seconds you’re looking for.’

‘And how many CCTV cameras are there around the Langham Hotel?’

‘Let’s see – there are cameras outside the main entrance, outside the side entrance to the bar, around the back at the service entrance, at the entrance to the spa – and that’s without neighbouring CCTV outside the BBC and the various restaurants, offices and embassies that are in Portland Place.’

‘We’ve already got you and your friend Mrs Sallis – Ginger – entering the bar’s side entrance of the hotel on CCTV,’ DCI said. ‘And earlier in the day there are CCTV images of your husband outside the hotel, although there is no evidence of him entering – yet.’

He let the word hang between us, trying to frighten me, but I thought that perhaps he was not quite as confident as he seemed, just like every other bully who ever lived.

‘As you can imagine, Mrs Carver, our people are currently wading through a few hundred hours of CCTV images.’ He paused. ‘But the thing about CCTV is that it is endlessly fallible. What can go wrong with CCTV, Gillian?’