A Life in the Day.

I found out that Lindon Bridgewater had panicked that morning when the police had knocked on his door, and during the subsequent interview in his kitchen, beneath the Pierrot poster and under the whirling clouds of smoke, dressed only in his bathrobe, he'd given them the number I had written on the slip of paper in the hope that Laura would call. He had told them that I had gone round next door while I was visiting and that he didn't know anything more about what happened in that time because I had been so reticent about the event when later asked. They invited me to the station to help them in their investigation into the murder of the next door neighbour.

In an interview room, they recorded me telling them exactly what I had seen and what the drunk woman had said. I wasn't too sure about the accuracy of things I remembered and later, at the reconstruction, I realised some of the details I had mentioned were patently drawn from fictional detective cases and police procedurals. They must have known this. Perhaps they dismissed it, sieved it from my statement by instinct. They were so accustomed to the sheer quantity of witness testimony each of us carries that they were able to pick out the fragments of reality that shone like the shards of a broken mirror in the dust of forced remembrance. They told me I was not a suspect.

The officers looked bored and seemed tempted to shelve the case but the victim's celebrity status demanded reinforced manpower and an expanded budget. The detective in charge drained his plastic cup and asked if I would mind attending the filming of a reconstruction that might help to loosen any details I had overlooked. His voice made me feel tired. His eyes betrayed the domestic problems that seem to plague all officers of the law; the ones in TV procedurals, anyhow.

The victim had once been a famous soap actress and was now the doyenne of daytime make-over escapades and quizshow panels. I forget her name. In her heyday, fanatics of the soap had written to tabloids and protested at studio gates about the unfair treatment her character was receiving in the show. She had been swindled out of her life savings; married seven times; robbed an off-licence, a post office and a bookies; been in four car accidents, in which three of her nine children and one husband had died; was raped twice, once by aliens; laundered forged currency; poisoned a lesbian lover; blackmailed a priest; kidnapped an adopted child; stalked a sportsman; survived a train crash and a hot air balloon mishap; had Asperger's, Munchausen's and Tourette's syndromes, ME, MS, breast cancer and a brain tumour; and had ended her brief career languishing in a foreign prison with a kilo of class A hidden inside her. It was suspected she might have links to organised crime in real life.

I learned this from the sergeant as we drove to the scene of the crime. He flicked through his notebook from time to time and often chuckled. When we arrived at Calydon Street, the front of the victim's house was covered with plastic sheeting, and a crowd of people, including a film crew and photographers, stood in the road. It appeared most people in the street had an opinion on the victim's daily routine and events leading up to the discovery of the body. They surrounded a policeman and shouted and corrected each other as he tried to note down what they were saying. The TV news crew stood around talking on mobile phones and smoking.

A detective led me into the house, but told me not to touch anything. Men and women in white overalls leant over objects with intricate tools or cameras. The place was bathed in blood. There was a lot of damage to the room. The TV was still showing fictional images of a sleepless detective's thoughtful face. It was not unlike the face that surveyed the room beside me. He tutted, and asked me to repeat what I had seen. It seemed unnecessary that he should listen as I told him about the suitcase, the collapse on the sofa, the vomit in the toilet. I suspected he knew a lot more than he had let on. We went through into the kitchen, where the head had been found in a recycling bin. A smart woman standing at the dining table noticed the inspector had entered, and called over to him. He responded in a slow, assured way, listening to her describe a new piece of evidence as if he already knew what she was about to say. She had found a document, in the victim's handwriting she confirmed, after comparison with other specimens, that appeared to be a confession, or perhaps an intended suicide note. It was entitled A Life in the Day and detailed a loveless marriage, an affair with someone in the street, and thoughts of homicide and suicide. Next to it was an envelope addressed to the Sunday Times Magazine. The woman picked it up with tweezers and squeezed it into a polythene bag.

"Don't let them in here," the detective said abruptly. I turned and saw that he had somehow noticed a few journalists trying to push their way through the front door. There were a couple of bursts of flash lighting. He took the manuscript from the woman and read the first few paragraphs. "These articles are usually written about celebrities, are they not? They detail the banality of their daily functions to enable lifestyle comparison by readers. Call the paper, see if she had contacted them."

Immediately the woman grabbed a mobile phone and began dialling. At that moment, the sergeant came into the kitchen, flustered, weaving sheets of his notebook back and forth in an effort to structure what he was about to say. He shook his head. He could not quite order the details of fresh data before he spoke.

"About six this morning, initial timing from forensics. Looks like forced entry. Nothing seems to have been taken. Some boot prints which might be interesting."

The detective sighed and looked at the sergeant for some time. He did not seem to be thinking, merely delaying any response he might have, or perhaps accentuating his frustration with the junior policeman.

"Do we have any kind of psychological profile on the Pegasus case?"

"Not just yet. The mainframe collapsed yesterday."

"Is that public?"

"No."

"Is someone having a laugh?"

"Sir?"

"Are we ready for this?"

"All set."