‘Tara hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Christian said.

‘She fled a crime scene for starters,’ DI Ure said.

Bitch.

DCI Stoner smiled pleasantly. ‘Why would your wife need a lawyer, sir?’ Silence. ‘Mrs Carver is a significant witness,’ Stoner said. ‘A witness. Witnesses don’t need lawyers. Only suspects.’ He turned back to me. ‘We appreciate your time, Mrs Carver. The criminal justice system can’t work without the cooperation of witnesses.’

‘So I don’t need a lawyer?’

He seemed genuinely amused. ‘I’ll let you know if you need a lawyer, Mrs Carver! But I can assure you now that you don’t need one to make a witness statement.’

‘What new evidence?’ I asked again.

‘Theft of a significant item of property from the deceased,’ DI Ure said.

‘A twenty-nine-year-old man has been charged with the murder of James Caine,’ DCI Stoner said. ‘Did you see this man begging outside the Langham Hotel?’

He looked at Ure and she crossed the living room with her phone in her hand and held it out to me, displaying a police mug shot of the man Ginger and I had seen on the pavement outside the Langham.

‘The British soldier,’ I said. ‘That’s what his sign said. He had a little cardboard sign. A British soldier.’

‘And did you speak to him?’

‘No.’

‘Did he speak to you or Mrs Sallis?’

‘No. That is – yes.’

I glanced over at DI Ure, caught her shaking head, stifling a theatrical sigh.

‘And which one is it?’ asked DCI Stoner, very gently.

‘He told us – have a nice night,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your evening. Something like that. I don’t remember exactly.’

‘Was he wearing a watch?’ DCI Stoner said.

I thought about it.

‘Mrs Carver? Was James Caine wearing a watch when you and Mrs Sallis discovered the body?’

I realised then that I should have asked Ginger exactly what she had told them, and that she was dead right. We should have got our stories straight.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if he was wearing a watch.’

‘Do you ever think about the amount of food we throw away in this country?’ DCI Stoner said. ‘It’s obscene.’ He sipped his tea, his eyes clouding with disbelieving rage. ‘That’s what our suspect, Alfred Oakley, was doing in that five-star hotel, Mrs Carver. This – er – gentleman who served in the armed forces. He was scavenging for food that was being thrown out. All the food that people in the hotel ordered from room service, and put on their credit card, or their expense account, and then leave on the side of the plate to be thrown away.’

I stared at him.

‘That’s how our suspect fed himself, by scavenging in hotel corridors,’ DCI Stoner said. ‘I’ve got the CCTV of Alfred Oakley going in through the service entrance at the back of the hotel. God knows he would never have made it through the front door! Or even the side door. Apparently, he’s done it before. He calls it “the leftovers run”, if you can believe that. Our suspect would go in and wander the floors and help himself to what was on the trays outside the rooms. And it was working out quite well for him until he took a shine to James Caine’s Rolex.’