‘You’re not wasting our time. We’re grateful to you, Mrs Foxton.’

‘It gives me a shivery feeling, remembering his face. So angry. And then to know he’s been murdered. I’d have been less surprised if he’d been the one doing the murdering.’

The next time that Hussein met Frieda Klein, the Tuesday after the body had been found, it was at the police station, and a solicitor was present. Hussein sat on one side of the table and they sat opposite her. Nobody wanted tea or coffee; there was no small talk.

Hussein had met Tanya Hopkins once before. She was a middle-aged woman, plump, with greying hair and a face bare of make-up. She wore soft, rumpled clothes with flat shoes and there was a maternal air about her – but her grey eyes were shrewd and when they got down to business she was incisive.

‘I have several questions,’ said Hussein.

Frieda Klein nodded and rested her hands on the table in front of her. She didn’t seem nervous and she kept her dark eyes on Hussein’s face, but there was a subdued air about her.

‘It is very clear that Alexander Holland was still obsessed with you. Would you like to tell me something about that obsession?’

Hopkins leaned over to Klein and murmured something that Hussein couldn’t make out. Klein didn’t reply but just gave her a curious smile.

‘It’s all right,’ she said to Hussein. ‘Sandy and I broke up about eighteen months ago.’

‘You broke up with him.’

‘Yes. He found it hard to accept that something that was once so important to both of us was over. I wouldn’t call that an obsession.’

‘He was wearing your old hospital tag on his wrist.’

Frieda’s face was serious. ‘People can be strange,’ she said.

‘Indeed. I understand that he came back from America in order to be with you.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that he was very supportive of you when you found yourself involved in a case that stirred painful memories for you.’

‘You can call it by its proper name. When I was a teenager I was raped. I went back to my home town to find out who had done that. Yes, he was very supportive.’

‘And yet you ended it.’

There was a pause. Hussein waited. Frieda said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think that was a question. Yes, I ended it. You cannot stay with someone simply out of gratitude.’

‘Was he extremely angry?’

‘He was upset.’

‘Angry?’

‘Sometimes being upset takes the form of anger.’

‘Eighteen months later, he was still angry?’

‘He was still upset.’

‘Did you ever encourage him to think there was a chance?’

‘No.’ Her voice was clipped. ‘I did not.’

‘You never got back together with him?’

‘No.’

‘Yet he rang you or texted you almost every day, sometimes several times a day.’

Frieda had been speaking in a quick, precise tone. Now she paused and when she spoke it was almost in a sigh. ‘It was painful.’

‘For you or for him?’

‘For both of us, of course. But probably more for him.’

The door opened and Bryant came in, shutting it quietly behind him. He nodded at Frieda, introduced himself to Tanya Hopkins and pulled a chair to the table. Hussein waited until he was sitting before she spoke again.

‘Did you talk to him when he called?’

‘Not very often. At first I did, but not recently. I thought it would be …’ She frowned. ‘Counterproductive,’ she said at last.

‘When you did talk, what were the conversations like?’

‘I don’t understand the question.’

‘It’s quite simple. Did he plead with you, shout at you, insult you?’

‘Sandy was a proud man.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘You’re making him sound …’ she slightly lifted a hand from the table, then let it drop ‘… disordered.’

‘Was he disordered?’

‘He was in a dark place in his life. So he probably did all those things. Usually I didn’t answer his call. I let it go to voicemail.’

Hussein pulled the photocopy of the dates and times that had been found at the dead man’s flat. ‘Do you recognize this?’

Frieda looked at it. ‘That’s when I’m scheduled to be at the Warehouse,’ she said, in a low voice.

‘So he knew your movements?’

‘He must have done.’

‘You told me at our last interview that it had been a long time since you had actually met him but that you had – what was the word? – yes, glimpsed him a couple of weeks before he was found dead. On Tuesday, June the tenth. Treat that as a question,’ she added, when Frieda just looked at her with her unnerving dark eyes.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I want to know more about this last encounter with him. What was his mood?’

Before Frieda could speak there was a knocking at the door. Hussein looked around angrily. She nodded at Bryant, who got up and opened it. He could be heard speaking to someone outside, then he returned. A man came in with him. He was dressed in a dark suit, with a sober dark blue tie. He had rumpled grey hair and tortoiseshell glasses and he gazed about the room blinking like an owl. He was carrying a brown file under his arm.

‘I wondered if I could sit in,’ he said.

‘This isn’t a public event,’ said Hussein.

‘I know, I know.’ He fumbled in an inside pocket and took out a small white card, which he handed to her. As Hussein examined it, he looked around, as if he were uncertain of where he was.

‘You’re not from the Met?’ said Hussein.

‘No,’ said the man.

‘I don’t quite understand who you are.’

‘There’s a number you can call, if you want,’ he said amiably.

‘I certain do want. Here, Glen.’ She handed the card over to Bryant. ‘Go and check this out, will you?’ She looked at the stranger. ‘We’ll wait until DC Bryant returns before we continue.’

‘Of course. Terribly sorry to be a nuisance.’

Bryant went out of the room and Hussein waited, clenching and unclenching her fists on the desk. Frieda Klein sat still and upright opposite her. When Bryant returned a few minutes later, he had an expression of comic bewilderment on his broad face, but he nodded at Hussein and whispered a few words in her ear.

Hussein’s mouth tightened with anger. ‘It looks like your friends are bigger than my friends,’ she said.

‘I’ll try not to be in the way.’

He didn’t sit down. He walked to the far corner of the room and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and holding the file against his chest. His expression was impassive.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, to the room at large. ‘Ignore me. I’m not part of the inquiry.’

‘You’d better not be.’ Hussein turned to Frieda. ‘Where were we?’

Frieda didn’t answer at once, but turned towards the man leaning against the wall, with a vague smile on his face. ‘I would prefer you to stand where I can see you, please.’

‘Fair enough.’ The man moved further into the room, so that he was to one side of Frieda. ‘Better?’

Frieda nodded, then turned her gaze back to Hussein. ‘You were asking whether I remembered Sandy coming to the Warehouse,’ she said. ‘And the answer is, yes, I do remember.’

‘And behaving in a violent manner?’

‘I don’t think I would call it that.’

‘Shouting, throwing a bin bag at you, kicking the dustbin. What would you call it?’

‘Agitated.’

‘All right. Let’s all it agitated. Why did you not see fit to tell me about this glimpse of your former partner?’

‘I didn’t think it relevant.’

‘You do realize that this was one of the last known sightings of him before he disappeared? You can safely assume that he didn’t have long to live. A day or two at the most.’

Frieda stared at her; her face was like a mask and her eyes glittered.

‘For eighteen months Alexander Holland has been harassing you, and then he is murdered. What have you got to say to that?’

‘That’s not a serious question,’ said Hopkins.

‘All right. I’m interested in how you seem to be surrounded by a network of violence and trauma. We’ve already talked about your previous history –’