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on in court. Anything you do say will be given in evidence.’ He rattled through it; Matthew Hegarty knew the PACE codes inside out and upside down. ‘Do you understand the caution?’
    The man gritted his teeth.
    ‘Do you understand?’
    ‘Of course I bloody understand.’
    The girl could hardly speak. ‘Who the hell is Anthony Johnson?’
    The boyfriend said, ‘The guy from the club. That’s who it is.’
    Hegarty made another note. It would be quite significant later that Stockbridge knew this, that he wasn’t even surprised. Fatalistically calm was how Hegarty would put it in his report, causing great amusement down at the station.
    The man turned to the girl, who seemed to be rooted to the spot, tears coursing over her face, and he kissed her hard on her full mouth. Hegarty saw DC Susan Jones turn her eyes away.
    ‘It’ll be OK,’ Stockbridge said to the girlfriend. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
    Hegarty, with the dead man’s blood drying on his shoes, wasn’t so sure.
Charlotte
    As Dan was being bundled down the stairs, Charlotte stood still in the middle of the living room until she realised she was shivering. She had on her skimpiest nightie, and the policeman had probably seen the side of her breasts. She didn’t even remember putting it on. Snapping out of her frozen calm, she went to the bedroom for a jumper.
    The woman officer was at the door. ‘Miss? You have to stay still. We’ll be doing a search.’
    She could hardly speak for a moment. ‘But . . . can I at least get a jumper?’
    The woman watched her like a hawk as she pulled on Dan’s old college sweater, drawing the hood tight about her face. Then Charlotte went through to sit on the sofa in her tiny nightdress. It was all a mistake, of course, it had to be. Maybe they’d sue and be able to upgrade to the private villa in Jamaica.
    What did she even remember about last night? They were in the club, and everything was fuzzy and light, and she was laughing and talking very fast. There was that girl in the toilets, that angry girl, and she’d put down the fiver, too much, but she had no change, and she was embarrassed and she’d wobbled out and there was Dan, and he was shouting at that man in the shiny suit. Was that who they meant? Anthony Johnson – was he the club owner? She couldn’t think. Her head felt huge, like a planet turning slowly in orbit, as if it was getting bigger and bigger until it would bounce off the ceiling like a balloon.
    But Dan hadn’t been gone that long with the Johnson man, she was sure. She’d been standing outside in the street; somehow she’d got the coats and was waiting with her bare legs, and she wanted to go home. She was there, how long? A few minutes? And then someone pushed past her – was that right? She couldn’t remember anything, just the push and a smell of something sweet, a muttered curse. Had that happened? When was it – in the club, or outside?
    Christ, if only she remembered! There must have been a taxi, there usually was. She’d fallen asleep, or more likely passed out, until the insistent hammering on the door, and the police, the woman very plain with a Birmingham accent, the man nervy, wiry, and they’d said, Daniel Stockbridge? And then, well, then Dan had gone. Her mouth still stung from his last hard kiss. She stood listening to the quiet of the Saturday-morning flat, the hum of the fridge and the tick of the retro Happy Days clock they’d bought in Spitalfields Market. What was she supposed to do now?
    That was when she heard the voices and heavy feet on the stairs, and thought, Crap . Mrs Busybody downstairs would have a fit about all this noise.
Hegarty
    Back at the station, Hegarty leaned on the front desk to do his notes while Daniel Stockbridge cooled his heels in the interview room. It was a little trick he’d learned from his dad, a forty-year Force man – leaving them just long enough that they’d get angry and talk more. ‘What’s he said then?’ He was busy