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‘And you’ve got him.’

‘You have. You unfasten the cage, lift it up with the raccoon still dangling from it, and drop them both into the sack.’

‘And that’s what you think this is?’

‘I wonder,’ Sophie said, still staring at the objects on the table.

Moments passed. Sophie continued to stare, lost in thought.

‘Sophie?’

‘After that, you knot the sack and you throw it in the river.’

‘What?’ I said, and when she didn’t answer: ‘You are joking, right?’

When she looked up, her expression was quite serious.

‘Can I show you something?’ she said.

‘Yeah. Yes. Of course you can.’

My agent reached down beside her chair and lifted a small black handbag onto the table. She took out her purse, opened it and removed a little square of greyish paper from one of its many pockets.

‘Just read this, if you would,’ she said, passing it to me.

The square turned out to be a neatly folded piece of newspaper. It folded out into a long, thin column of text. An old print review of Cupid’s Engine.

I began to read. Astonishing manipulation of expectation, countless twists and turns, flawlessly realised. On and on it went, the words masterpiece and genius showing up, and pulled double, triple duty, the review text escalating through the excitement registers as it progressed, leaving any attempt at even-handed, critical assessment of what was, after all, a murder mystery novel, far, far behind.