‘Look.’ A bit ratty now. ‘It is important.’

‘Also important she doesn’t die of some stress-related condition. I mean, like, important for me. Don’t imagine you’d have to go off and live with your right-wing grandmother in Cheltenham. Who are you, anyway?’

Could almost hear the woman counting one… two… three… through gritted teeth.

‘My name’s Tania Beauman, from the Livenight television programme in Birmingham.’

Oh, hey! ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously,’ Tania Beauman said grimly.

Jane was, like, horribly impressed. Jane had seen Livenight four times. Livenight was such total crap and below the intelligence threshold of a cockroach, but compulsive viewing, oh yeah.

‘Livenight?’ Jane said.

‘Correct.’

‘Where you have the wife in the middle and the husband on one side and the toyboy lover on the other, and about three minutes to midnight one finally gets stirred up enough to call the other one a motherfucker, and then fights are breaking out in the audience, and the presenter looks really shocked although you know he’s secretly delighted because it’ll all be in the Sun again. That Livenight?’

‘Yes,’ Tania said tightly.

‘You want her on the programme?’

‘Yes, and as it involves next week’s programme we don’t have an awful lot of time to play with. Is she in?’

‘No, but I’m Merrily Watkins’s personal assistant, and I have to warn you she doesn’t like to talk about the other stuff. Which is what this is about, right? The Rev. Spooky Watkins, from Deliverance?’

Tania didn’t reply.

‘I could do it, of course, if the money was OK. I know all her secrets. I’d be very good, and controversial. I’ll call anyone a motherfucker.’