‘Like what?’

‘If I’m going to represent you, it’s helpful if the nasty surprises come at the beginning.’

‘I told you, I’ve got no connection to the murders.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Langley. ‘Is there anything you’ve kept secret, because you thought it might be awkward?’

‘It’s awkward enough as it is,’ I said. ‘I was involved in a big row with Leah. Kamsky, the detective, even witnessed part of it.’

‘If there’s anything else to come out, I can assure you that it’s better to admit it to me now than to wait for a journalist or the police to find it next week.’

‘There’s nothing else,’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Not many people can say that,’ said Langley. ‘Then let’s call them back in.’

He called me his client and sat beside me, speaking slowly and clearly, as if I was hard of hearing. Sometimes he would let me speak and sometimes he told me not to answer a question. They asked me the same things over and over again – times, places, names, actions – and jumped on every slip, confusion and contradiction. I had the feeling that words had turned into traps that could spring shut on me without warning.

They seemed especially interested in my relationship with Miles. How long had it lasted? How close had we been? How had we broken up? Had I been jealous of Leah? Had Leah been jealous of me? Had I had feelings of animosity towards Leah?

‘Yes,’ I replied, before Seth could stop me.

‘You wished her ill?’ asked McBride, leaning forward.

‘Of course I wished her ill. I wanted her to suffer and feel guilt. There were times I hated her almost more than I can remember hating anyone. I wanted to wipe the smug expression off her face.’

‘Astrid,’ warned Seth.

‘No, listen. So what? There are plenty of people I don’t like, who I hate even, but that doesn’t mean I want them dead. Or even if I did want them dead, it doesn’t mean I’d do anything about it. It’s ridiculous.’

And then: what were my feelings on discovering my sometime-lover – and yes, I said miserably, I had had sexual intercourse on more than one occasion with Owen – had slept with my friend? And more: if he had slept with Pippa, was it possible he had also slept with Leah? Is that what I had discovered last night?

‘It’s not like that,’ I said.

‘Let’s see,’ said McBride, leafing through notes he’d scribbled down. ‘You had an affair with Miles Thornton, your landlord and partner of Ms Peterson. Then there’s this Owen Sullivan, who lives in the house. You’ve been sexually involved with him, and he had also had an affair with another of the residents, Philippa Walfisch.’

‘It wasn’t really an affair,’ I interrupted.

‘Well, it sounds like fun, anyway.’

‘That’s not the word I’d choose.’

‘I was asking if Ms Peterson and your boyfriend -’

‘Who’s not my boyfriend.’

‘- if they had perhaps had a sexual relationship.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘For what reason?’

‘Owen hates her, for a start.’

McBride looked up from his notebook.

‘Enough to kill her?’ he said.

I couldn’t think of a reply that wouldn’t make matters worse and we took a break. I had stewed coffee that made me feel sick and a cigarette that made me feel sicker. Seth made phone calls. Outside, the sky was now an unbroken blue. I looked at the clock on the interview room’s wall: it was half past two. What was happening now at Maitland Road? Did they now know Leah was dead? I rubbed my sore eyes with my fists: I felt gritty and a kind of drab weariness had set in.

We began again – ‘recommenced’, as McBride put it. This time Hal Bradshaw was there as well, with his sympathetic face. I preferred Kamsky’s inscrutability or even McBride’s hostility to the way he looked at me as if he knew exactly what was going on inside my head. How could he know? I didn’t know myself. He asked what I felt about Leah. He asked how I was, as if he was my doctor, as if he was my friend. I gave brief, uninformative replies. He was on their side. After it became clear that his tactic of getting me to talk, to free-associate, to give myself away, wasn’t working, he looked helplessly at Kamsky.

‘You’re going round in circles,’ said Langley. ‘You’re wasting Miss Bell’s time.’

‘Wasting time?’ said Kamsky, with a flash of anger. ‘There have been three murders. Your client is connected to them.’

‘She’s been perfectly willing to answer your questions at every stage. If you need any information, just ask her. Otherwise I think we should bring this interview to a close.’

I expected Kamsky to get angry, to shout, but he just looked weary. He turned to McBride. ‘Can you leave us for a moment?’ he said.

McBride glanced contemptuously at Langley and me, then left, slamming the door. Kamsky didn’t hurry to speak. He ran a fingernail between a gap in his teeth as if he was trying to remove a trapped fragment of food.

‘I hope your solicitor has given you good advice,’ he said. He pronounced the word ‘solicitor’ in a slightly sarcastic tone, as if Langley was only pretending to be one and I’d obtained him under false pretences. ‘You saw that the victim’s face was mutilated in the same way as Mrs de Soto ’s.’

‘Yes.’

‘But we haven’t found the knife. Who did you tell about Ingrid de Soto ’s face?’

‘No one.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll spell it out as clearly as I can, so we all know what we’re dealing with here. One, you bump into Margaret Farrell’s car door and a few minutes later, if that, she’s murdered. There is the minor detail that her body seems to have vanished for a period of hours, then reappeared where it was discovered. Two, you’re sent to collect a package from Ingrid de Soto’s house and you arrive to find that, just a few minutes before, she has been killed and mutilated. There is no sign of a forced entry, no weapon on the scene, and there is no package to be collected. Three, you are then sent to collect another package from a house, and when you arrive you discover that, just a few minutes before, Leah Peterson has been murdered and mutilated in a manner similar to that of Ingrid de Soto. Again, there is no package and no knife on the scene. You can’t blame us for wanting to question you.’

‘I know,’ I said wearily.

‘People behave unexpectedly under extreme circumstances,’ said Kamsky, gently now. ‘They remember the strangest things and they forget the strangest things. They do the strangest things. It’s almost an accident. It’s as if they’ve turned into someone else. They’re not themselves.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to do clever things to get me to talk. You don’t need to coax me into agreeing with some scenario or other. I can’t believe I need to say these words, but here goes: I didn’t kill Leah or have anything to do with her death. I didn’t kill Ingrid de Soto, or have anything to do with her death. I didn’t kill Peggy either. But I’ll stay here as long as you want. I’ll answer anything you want.’

There was a silence now, which was only broken when Kamsky laced his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and gave a huge yawn. ‘You’ll remember,’ he said, ‘back in those days when there were only two murders, we wondered if they were connected. It seemed possible, because of your – well, what shall we say? Presence? Proximity? They didn’t seem to have any other connection. Only you.’

‘Is there a question coming?’ asked Langley.

‘And now we have the murder of Leah Peterson. It’s as if God has opened the clouds and is yelling down at me personally, saying; “You want a connection? All right, here’s a fucking connection you can’t miss.”’

‘Please,’ said Langley.

‘I suppose I ought to be careful,’ said Kamsky. ‘I don’t want to get on the wrong side of you.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Look at the evidence. Margaret Farrell injures you -’

‘She didn’t injure me.’

‘Ingrid de Soto irritates you.’