And then the act stopped. The confused and disbelieving expression fell from his face and was replaced with a sinister glare.

‘She been to see you then, has she?’ he asked.

‘That’s not relevant. Answer the question: what happened between the two of you on the night of the fifteenth of July?’

Roy chortled and folded his arms across his chest. ‘I bet she has, hasn’t she? She’s probably got some things to say, I imagine. Probably told you them already, otherwise why else would you be asking me about this?’ He shook his head, chuckling slightly. ‘I never did anything she’s accusing me of. I don’t know what it is she thinks I’ve done, but I didn’t do it.’

‘What about what six other women are saying you’ve done?’

‘What’s that?’

Tomek moved the conversation along.

‘I understand you like to disappear and leave the house at random for a couple of hours on end, is that right?’

‘You been talking to my wife as well?’

Tomek pulled a face. ‘There’s no problem with that, is there? Unless you’re worried there’s something she might tell us.’

The walls of Roy’s defences went back up again.

‘No comment,’ he said.

‘Where do you go when you leave the house alone?’

‘No comment.’

‘What do you do?’

‘No comment.’

‘Who do you meet up with?’

‘No comment.’

‘How long have you been doing it for?’

‘No comment.’

‘Did it start after your night with Sylvie? Prowling the streets at night⁠—’

‘I don’t prowl the streets. I’m not a fucking serial killer, if that’s what you’re trying to insinuate.’ The sixty-one-year-old’s defences went crashing back down. And Tomek had a job trying to find the balance to keep him where he wanted him.

‘What are you doing, then?’

‘Walking. Clearing my thoughts. Sometimes I look up at the sky and watch the planes go over.’

Plane watching? That was what he was doing in the middle of the night and during the day, for hours at a time? Tomek was dubious.

‘What about on the night of Angelica’s murder?’ he asked.

‘Seriously?’ Roy hissed, shocked. ‘You want to go down that route? I’ve already told your team I was home, asleep with my wife at that point. I had nothing to do with her murder. I can’t believe you would accuse me of having anything to do with what happened to her. It’s bad enough that Johnny’s been thrown into all of this.’

‘You’re right, you did say that you were sleeping. But given what we now know about your random and sometimes inexplicable disappearances, I thought I’d ask again for your whereabouts on the night of your daughter’s death. Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

The man collapsed back into his chair and folded his arms again. ‘Absolutely not. I had absolutely nothing to do with my darling angel’s death. I find the insinuation abhorrent. Firstly, I was asleep when it happened. Secondly, I live half an hour away, so you would have seen my car travelling through the traffic lights and speed cameras. Have a look. You can check.’

Tomek said nothing. Waited.

‘Secondly, and this should have been the first point, in all honesty: why? Why would I do that to my daughter? I loved her more than anything. I adored the earth she walked on. Why would I kill her?’

‘Because you, a heavily devout Methodist, didn’t agree with several of her habits. You couldn’t stand the fact that she’d got pregnant again, that she was having relationships with both men and women, that she was taking drugs and abusing alcohol. You couldn’t stand that she was in a dark place and she was doing all the things you despised.’

Tomek couldn’t believe he’d just said that. But he could sense the direction the conversation was going – downhill – and so he’d wanted to get it all out in the open.

‘She was sleeping with women? Taking drugs? My Angelica?’

‘Are you pretending you didn’t know?’

‘I’m telling you, I didn’t know.’

Tomek swallowed deeply. The decline was gradually becoming steeper and steeper.

‘But even so…’ Roy continued. ‘I… That wouldn’t have bothered me. Not in the slightest. I don’t have any issues with any of those things.’

From his tone, it was clear to see he didn’t believe a word of what he’d just said.

‘Nor do you have a problem with rape either, by the sounds of it,’ Tomek said. The words left his mouth before he could stop them, and he immediately regretted it.

‘Excuse me? Is that what this is about? Is that what Sylvie’s been saying about me? Absolutely not. And you fucking believe her? You have no evidence against me for her claims. And you have no evidence against me for what happened to Angelica.’

‘Is that an admission?’

Roy caught himself before responding. ‘Absolutely not. I didn’t kill my daughter. Not only do I not have sufficient reason to, but I was also asleep while it happened, and I can’t do half the things you said happened to her.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tomek asked.

Roy sighed, rolled up his sleeves. ‘I don’t know how to do make-up. Not in the slightest.’

‘You’ve worked with gorgeous women all your life who constantly wore make-up. Your wife and daughter did the same. It’s possible that you picked it up by osmosis.’

‘By osmosis? Are you insane?’

‘You can paint,’ Tomek said, rapidly coming to the realisation that he was losing this, that the decline had now become almost vertical and there was no way to stop himself.

‘I can paint? What the fuck’s that got to do with anything? Oh, you mean the wings? Please. I paint miniature aircraft, that’s not the same.’

‘It requires a steady hand and patience, all qualities which the killer possessed.’