"He was," Stella agrees, plain and simply. "It might seem quite extraordinary how... normal he could seem if you didn't know any better. A charming, helpful, intelligent, kind family man — until you looked a bit closer and realized underneath the mask was a violent, narcissistic sadist."

She doesn't need to go into all the details. The way Spector treated women like objects, like dolls to play with; the numerous journals he kept detailing women he stalked; the psychopathic delusions and fantasies. "During his initial confession, it seemed he recalled quite clearly the elaborate details of the crimes he committed, and he had a history of lying for his own benefit, so I was convinced he was falsifying the symptoms of amnesia, and during an interview I pushed him quite hard about it."

(Drop the charade. Own your confession. Have the courage of your convictions and admit that you remember it all.)

"When I and the officer with me were preparing to leave the interview room at that point in order to allow Spector to consult with his solicitor, Spector attacked me." And Stella stops, for a few seconds, her breath catching a little because the memory of that moment is so close and she still remembers his fist in her face, remembers collapsing to the floor only for Spector to kick her in the ribs, remembers being blindly terrified for her very life. Her composure falters a little, her hands tightening on each other in her lap, and she has to swallow hard to clear her throat.

"That's why the bruises," she says finally, the volume of her voice dropping to something hushed, barely louder than a whisper.