‘No, it’s not just that. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly saying all of this now. You’re with Leah, Miles. She’s bright and beautiful and you’re going to live together. You shouldn’t be saying these things to me. It’s not fair.’

‘If you told me that there was a chance, the smallest chance, then I’d tell Leah that -’

‘Hello,’ said Leah, cheerfully, appearing like a gleaming apparition before us in her smart work clothes, a briefcase in one hand and a paper tucked under her arm. ‘Hi, my love.’ She pulled off her jacket and sat next to Miles, leaned over and kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. Then she smiled at me, her teeth white, her skin smooth. She smelled faintly of apples, while Miles smelled of beer. I smelled of sweat and bike oil. ‘That looks terribly clever. I can’t even repair a puncture. I just take it into the shop. I used to feel I ought to learn, and then I worked out that if I priced my time, I was actually losing money by doing repairs myself.’

‘I suppose it depends how you price your time,’ I said, winding the new chain round the chain-ring. I was trying not to look at her. Had she heard any of the conversation?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It does.’

And that was the end of that. Miles sat and watched me work. Leah read the paper, glancing up frequently to watch us through narrowed eyes. I felt as if I was in a cage in a zoo with people staring at me through the bars.

‘You don’t have to move out until you’re ready,’ said Miles, eventually answering the question that had sparked off his declaration to me.

‘Three months, wasn’t that what we agreed?’ Leah spoke without raising her head from the paper.

‘I don’t remember,’ muttered Miles.

‘I mean, you’re not still students,’ said Leah. ‘You can’t go on living like this for ever. I think it’s amazing that Miles has let you live here all these years.’

I didn’t speak but I did cast a look towards Miles that had an element of sarcasm in it.

‘Strictly speaking,’ said Miles, ‘they paid rent and helped out with things.’

‘If you mean Dario’s DIY, I’m not sure it was necessarily adding value.’

The chain was attached and I sprayed the moving parts with lube. I lifted the bike so that the back wheel was off the ground and worked the pedal so that it spun in a blur of silver. It was a beautiful sight. Time for that beer.

‘What was that woman called?’ said Leah. ‘The one who was murdered.’

‘Peggy,’ I said.

‘Farrell,’ said Miles. ‘Margaret Farrell.’

‘They’ve arrested some people.’

Miles grabbed the paper and scanned it. ‘There’s not much,’ he said. ‘Four teenagers, who “cannot be named for legal reasons”. They’ve been arrested in connection with the murder and robbery of Margaret Farrell. Well, it’s not hard to guess where they’re from.’

‘Where?’ asked Leah.

‘They’re those feral kids from the estate. They’ll probably get two weeks’ community service.’

‘Why couldn’t they just have stolen her purse?’ I said. ‘Why did they have to kill her?’

‘That was part of the thrill,’ said Miles, grimly. ‘They probably filmed it on their mobiles.’

‘It’s funny being so close to something,’ I said. ‘And we don’t really know anything about it and we probably never will. I guess they’ll plead guilty in a few months’ time and that will be that and we’ll never hear anything more about it.’

‘There’s nothing to hear,’ said Miles.

Miles was wrong and I was wrong. After three more days, cleaning, shopping, a couple of parties, a movie with Saul, and three more nights, I found myself sitting in a room with a detective. PC Prebble had met me at the desk and led me through. I sat alone in the room and looked around. There was almost nothing to see. No windows, no pictures. The walls were painted beige. There was speckled lino on the floor, the sort that is easy to clean and doesn’t show dirt. There was a table with two moulded plastic chairs, and two more piled up against the wall.

The door opened and a head poked round. ‘Miss Bell?’

‘I’m Astrid Bell.’

The man came in. He was middle-aged, large, made larger by a grey suit very slightly too small for him. He was almost bald with his remaining hair cut very short. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Mitchell,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘I was surprised,’ I said.

He walked over and sat opposite me. ‘Why?’

‘I talked to the policeman and told him I had pretty much nothing to say, and then I heard that some people had been arrested so I thought that was the last I’d hear of it all.’

He leaned back on his chair with his hands laced behind his head and looked thoughtful. ‘This morning we charged the four young tearaways…’

‘So why…?’

‘With breaking and entering. Namely Mrs Farrell’s car.’

‘If they did that, they must have killed her as well.’

‘Did someone offer you coffee?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll probably be asked to fill in a form so that we can improve our service to the public. It asks questions like were you made comfortable, were you offered refreshments.’

‘Well, I was.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘You were telling me about the murder.’

‘Was I?’ said Mitchell. ‘Oh, yes. We have CCTV cameras rigged up at various entry-points at the William Morris flats. We clocked these four gentlemen wandering past the Dyson Street camera at eleven forty p.m. on their way out of the estate, and fourteen minutes later we clocked them coming back, passing between them a bottle of Bacardi rum they had lifted from Mrs Farrell’s car.’

‘So they did it.’

‘They didn’t force entry to her car, because it seems to have been unlocked – perhaps because of damage done to it during your collision. They didn’t bother with the CD player. You can’t give them away now. But they emptied her shopping and took two bottles of spirits and her mobile phone, which was attached to the in-car charger.’

‘It doesn’t sound worth killing someone for.’

Mitchell shrugged. ‘The first murder I ever worked on, a kid was killed by a classmate because he wouldn’t hand over his lunch money. Anyway, the receipt was still in one of the bags. It showed that Mrs Farrell completed her purchases at Tesco at seven twenty-eight p.m. What time was it that you saw her?’

‘It was a bit before eight.’

‘You’ll see the problem. We found Mrs Farrell’s body partially concealed behind the dustbins in the area down by the basement at the front of her house. She had been strangled and there were some signs of robbery. Her purse was missing, and so, according to her husband, were her watch and necklace. She had left her car unlocked and the burglar alarm inside her house was still engaged. You see?’

‘Not really,’ I said.

At that moment the door opened and PC Prebble came into the room with a plastic mug of coffee. He placed it on the table with two small plastic milk capsules, two sachets of sugar and a dish on which lay two digestive biscuits. ‘I didn’t know if you took sugar or milk,’ he said, ‘or if you were hungry.’

‘Just black is fine,’ I said, and took a sip. It was stewed and lukewarm.

Prebble didn’t leave. He took one of the seats in the corner and sat on it. Mitchell gave a sign and continued: ‘At about eight o’clock, Mrs Farrell opens her car door and you collide with it. She helps you and is profusely apologetic, but your housemates appear on the scene and take over. Is that right?’

‘Dario and Davy were sitting out on the steps having a… er… just chatting and they saw what happened and came and helped me.’

‘Mrs Farrell has her shopping in the car. She leaves you to be helped into the house. What is she going to do next?’

‘Go into her house, I suppose.’

‘Collect her shopping, take it inside. But from what we can tell, she never went back to her car to take out the shopping and never opened her front door. Her husband was away that night, and the lads from the estate didn’t arrive until four hours later.’