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they really like?’
    Instead, Yeats just asked, ‘They can confirm you were there?’
    ‘They could, but I’m sure they’d much rather not get involved with all this. I can give you Joey’s agent’s number, or the contractor. His name’s Mick Horton; he can tell you everything you need to know. And you can work out where people have been from the location of their mobile phones, isn’t that right?’
    Khan frowned. She didn’t look happy that I might be about to volunteer information.
    ‘We’re already checking that,’ said Yeats.
    ‘Good. Then you’ll find that I called Mariana at about 4.30, from Alderley Edge. She was still at the office then. She said she was planning to head home at five to make sure she was there when Andy, my brother, arrived.’
    ‘What was the purpose of your brother’s visit?’
    ‘He’d come up north to visit our mother. She’s in a nursing home near Harrogate and Andy lives down near Ashford, in Kent. It made sense for him to spend the night at our place.’
    ‘So your brother went alone to see your mother? You didn’t think you should go too …’
    ‘I visit my mother regularly, Chief Inspector. But she suffers from dementia – Alzheimer’s – so she easily gets confused. It’s better if we go one at a time.’
    That wasn’t the truth: not the whole truth, anyway. But it seemed to satisfy Yeats.
    ‘I see. And what was the purpose of the call you made to your wife at 4.30?’
    ‘I told her the meeting looked like it was running late.’
    ‘Why was that?’
    ‘That’s not relevant,’ Khan intruded. ‘My client has already told you that you can confirm his movements.’
    ‘So he says, yes,’ Yeats agreed. ‘But the more detailed Mr Crookham’s account is, and the more it tallies with the accounts given by other possible interviewees, the more I’ll be inclined to believe what he says.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ I said to Khan, then I looked across the table at Yeats: ‘If you must know, Michelle Norris wasn’t happy with the stone tiles in the front hall. She thought they were too dark. We had to sort out getting some new ones trucked over from Italy. Anyway, I didn’t leave till about half-six and I called Mariana again an hour later, from the car – hands-free, before you ask – to let her know when I was getting home.’
    ‘I’m not interested in traffic violations, Mr Crookham. Go on …’
    ‘Well, Andy and I had been planning to have a drink at the Queen’s Head before dinner, but I told her we’d have to scrap that.’
    ‘So this would be at approximately 7.30?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’re sure about that?’
    ‘Yes. I was listening to Five Live. They were doing the build-up to the United game at Old Trafford. Kick-off was 7.45, so it must have been about 7.30.’
    ‘Was this a long call?’
    ‘No, a couple of minutes at most. Not even that, probably.’
    ‘Because you were just informing your wife that you wouldn’t be going down the pub with your brother?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you speak to your brother?’
    ‘No.’
    Yeats frowned: ‘That’s odd. You didn’t feel like saying hello, telling him yourself?’
    ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to him.’
    ‘So why didn’t you?’
    ‘Because …’ Suddenly it hit me why Andy had not come to the phone, but I didn’t need Samira Khan to tell me to keep to that to myself. I just answered the question truthfully: ‘Mariana said he couldn’t talk to me. She said he was on his own phone.’
    Yeats leaned forward like a hound picking up a scent. ‘I see … and how did she sound? When she said your brother couldn’t talk …’
    Khan leaned across and whispered in my ear: ‘You shouldn’t answer this.’
    Then she spoke up: ‘A witness cannot be forced to incriminate their spouse, you know that Chief Inspector.’
    ‘Really?’ the detective replied. ‘Show me the statute of criminal law that says that. It’s common law at best: at worst just a legal urban myth. In any case, Ms