In 1984 his conviction was over-turned, because the black bag had been taken without a searchwarrant and the first investigator's notes had not been turned over to the prosecution and the defence. The next year, in a second trial, every piece of the medical and forensic evidence was taken apart by his new million-dollar team of lawyers.

Sunny, they showed, was psychologically fragile, heavily dependent on drink and drugs. On that night in 1980 she had binged on sweets, tranquillisers and a giant eggnog containing 12 fresh eggs and a whole bottle of bour-bon. The culprit was not insulin. Nor was it the needle in the black bag, which would not have been encrusted after withdrawal from the skin. Nor, therefore, was the culprit her husband.

At the "Not guilty" verdict, he sank his head into his hands. Yet speculation roared on. He had not testified at either trial, so pressand public could only look at his life to establish which verdictmight be right. And he would add to their confusion, first by refusing after 1987 to speak about the case (the result of an agreement with Sunny's children by her first marriage, though he had already written 300 pages of his version), and second by showing that there was more than one Claus von Bülow; maybe several.