With the bags safely stowed away in the boot I was once again on my way south, but just a few miles outside Woodbridge I came to a roundabout and a sign for Martlesham Heath. On an impulse I hit the indicator and took the third exit. Like it or not – and the truth was, I didn’t much – there was one encounter that had to take place. I couldn’t put it off any longer.

The Suffolk Constabulary headquarters were based in a really ugly modern building about five minutes from the main road. It was a square block of concrete and plate glass that managed to avoid any architectural merit whatsoever. You had to ask what the people of Martlesham Heath had done to deserve this brutalism on one side of their village, along with the soaring horror that was the BT research centre spoiling the skyline on the other. I suppose, at the very least, both constructions provided them with jobs.

I went into the reception area and asked to speak with Detective Chief Superintendent Locke. No – I didn’t have an appointment. What was it in connection with? The disappearance of Cecily Treherne. The uniformed officer looked doubtful but she made the call while I sat down on one of the plastic chairs provided and leafed through a copy of Suffolk Life that was five months out of date. I wasn’t sure that Locke would see me, and the officer had given no indication that he had even answered the phone, so I was surprised when after just a few minutes he suddenly appeared, stepping out of a lift. He marched straight over to me with such determination that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had grabbed hold of me, put me under arrest and dragged me into a cell. That was his manner … always on the edge of violence. It was as if he had caught something, some sort of virus perhaps, from the criminals he investigated. I knew he didn’t like me. He’d made that clear the last time we met.

But when he spoke it was almost with amusement. ‘Well, well, well. Ms Ryeland. I had a feeling it wasn’t coincidence when I clocked you at the hotel. And when they told me you were here, why wasn’t I surprised? All right, then. I can give you five minutes. There’s an office down here where we can talk … ’

I had done him an injustice. He had noticed me when we passed in the reception area at Branlow Hall. He had just chosen not to acknowledge me. He led me into an empty, soulless room that was perfectly square, with a table and four chairs placed exactly in the middle. A window looked out onto the woodland that surrounded the building. He held the door for me, then closed it as I sat down.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

The question took me by surprise. ‘I’m very well, thank you.’

‘I heard what happened when you were here last time, investigating Alan Conway’s death. You were almost killed.’ He wagged his finger. ‘I did warn you not to get involved.’

I couldn’t remember him saying anything of the sort but I didn’t argue.

‘So, what are you doing back in Suffolk and at Branlow Hall? No. You don’t need to tell me. I already had Aiden MacNeil on the phone complaining about you. It’s funny, isn’t it! I’d have said Alan Conway has already caused you enough grief, but you just can’t leave him alone.’

‘I’d have said he was the one who won’t leave me alone, Detective Chief Superintendent.’

‘He was a nasty little shit while he was alive and he’s still a nasty little shit now that he’s dead. Do you really believe he put something in his book? Another secret message … this time about Frank Parris?’

‘Have you read it?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

Locke stretched out his legs and considered. It struck me that he was being unusually polite, friendly even. But then his argument had always been with Alan Conway, not with me, and with good reason. Alan had asked him for help with his research and in return had turned him into a vaguely comic character – Detective Inspector Raymond Chubb. Chubb and Locke. Get it? He had also created a grotesque parody of Locke’s wife who had turned up in the second book, No Rest for the Wicked, although I had never met the real woman myself. Perhaps, with Alan’s death, Locke had decided to forgive me for my part in all this. It might also have helped that his alter ego didn’t make an appearance in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case.

‘I thought it was the usual load of rubbish,’ he said, calmly. ‘You know my views on detective fiction.’

‘You certainly expressed them very strongly.’

There was no need to remind me but he did. ‘Whodunnits written by the likes of Alan Conway have absolutely no bearing on real life and if the people who read them think otherwise, more fool them. There are no private detectives; not unless you want to spy on your teenage son or find out who your husband is screwing. And murders don’t usually take place in thatched cottages or stately homes – or seaside villages, for that matter. Atticus Pünd Takes the Case! You tell me one thing in that book – one thing – that isn’t complete rubbish. The Hollywood actress who buys a house in the middle of nowhere. That business with the diamond. The knife on the hall table. I mean – please! As soon as you see a knife on a table, you know it’s going to end up in somebody’s chest.’

‘That’s what Chekhov said.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Russian playwright. He said that if you have a pistol on the wall in the first act, then it has to be fired in the second. He was explaining how every element in a story has to have a point.’

‘Did he also say that the story has to be unbelievable and the ending completely ridiculous?’

‘I take it you didn’t guess it, then.’

‘I didn’t even try. I read the book because I thought it might have something to do with the disappearance of Cecily Treherne and as it turned out that was a total waste of my time.’

‘It sold half a million copies worldwide.’ I don’t know why I was defending Alan Conway. Maybe I was just defending myself.

‘Well, you know my thoughts on that, Ms Ryeland. You turn murder into a game and you ask people to join in. What’s the police detective called in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case? Hare. I suppose he’s got that name because he’s hare-brained. He’s a complete idiot, isn’t he? Never gets anything right.’ He rapped a heavy knuckle on the table. ‘You must be very proud of yourself. Half a million copies of infantile crap that trivialises crime and erodes faith in the rule of law.’

‘You’ve made up your mind, but I think you’ve always been mistaken about crime fiction, Detective Chief Superintendent. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way. I don’t think Alan’s books ever did anyone any harm – except me. People enjoyed them and they knew perfectly well what they were getting when they read them. Not real life so much as an escape from it – and God knows we’re all in need of that right now. Twenty-four-hour news. Fake news. Politicians calling each other liars when they aren’t actually lying themselves. Maybe there’s something a little comforting in a book that actually makes sense of the world in which it takes place and leads you to an absolute truth.’

He wasn’t going to engage with me. ‘Why are you here, Ms Ryeland?’ he asked.

‘If you mean why am I in Martlesham Heath, I was hoping you’d let me see the original police report into Stefan Codrescu. It was eight years ago so it can’t be of any interest to anyone now. I’d like to see the forensic reports, the interrogations – all of it.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s confidential! It’s police work. You really think we’re going to release sensitive information to any member of the public who comes knocking at the door?’

‘But suppose Stefan Codrescu didn’t do it!’

That was when Locke’s patience snapped and his voice took on a threatening tone.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I was the one who led the investigation, so frankly what you just said is insulting. You weren’t anywhere near when the murder happened. You just sat back and let your golden boy turn it into a fairy story. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Codrescu killed Frank Parris for the money that he needed to feed his gambling habit. He confessed as much in a room identical to this one just one floor above and his brief was sitting next to him all the time. There were no thumbscrews. No threats.

‘Codrescu was a career criminal and it was madness having him in the hotel in the first place. If you’re so interested in crime, let me tell you a story – a true story. Just one month before the murder at Branlow Hall, I was part of a team that closed down a Romanian gang operating in Ipswich. They were a charming bunch of people involved in begging, violent assaults and burglary. They were all graduates of a Romanian crime academy. I’m not kidding you. They even had their own textbooks, which taught them how to avoid electronic detection, how to hide their DNA. That sort of thing.