‘Oh, wow,’ she said. ‘The joy of things to come.’ She looked away and a deep blush climbed across her cheekbones.

Mason pointed at two evidence bags at the centre of the table.

‘We pulled the laptop from McKee’s flat. Sergeant Harris took his iPhone from him before Riley took him into the interview suite.’

‘Is he in the cells now?’

‘Yeah. We’re going to have to motor on this one. What’s your brief from Eve?’

‘Find anything at all on his devices that link him to the dead women and the missing, abducted woman, Francesca Christie.’

‘Then we’re singing from the same hymn sheet, which is good.’

Poppy picked up the two evidence bags.

‘We worked super-fast,’ said Price, ‘once we had the laptop and the phone. They’re both sticky because we used sellotape to pull any fingerprints, palm prints and fabric fibres.’

‘I’ll be wearing a double layer of latex gloves,’ she said, reaching the door.

‘If you come up with anything, Poppy, as soon as you’ve spoken to Eve, let us know. It could influence the complexion of our search.’

As she closed the door after herself, Mason took in a slow in-breath, his nose wrinkling.

‘Raw meat, sweat disguised by too much cheap body spray. McKee’s obviously neat and tidy but some smells you just can’t wash away or mask. He must have worked out a lot in his flat.’

Price looked at the sheet of lint roller in his hand and showed the tiny blue fibres lifted from Edgar McKee’s jacket to Mason.

‘OK, Paul, just keep going. All we need is one stroke of luck and that’ll leave him needing a million.’

Mason took the next evidence bag from the pile, removed a blue check brushed cotton shirt and laid it down on the table.

He checked the clock on the wall. Since Edgar McKee had been booked in to custody, the passage of time in his head seemed to have accelerated to double fast. The clock told a similar story.

‘I wonder how Winters is getting on with Marlene Black?’

‘Who?’ Price seemed miles away, engrossed in the task at hand as he opened the front of the jacket and pressed the sticky sheet of lint roller on the inside of the garment.

‘The working girl who McKee claimed was entertaining him on the night Francesca Christie went missing.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Marlene Black. I heard he wasn’t a bit embarrassed when he told Riley about it. I’d feel like somehow my whole life was a failure if I had to pay a woman to have sex with me.’

Mason indicated the DVDs. ‘It was clearly a way of life for him. Goes into the newsagents for a paper, then pops into the nearest knocking shop for a shag. Equally weighted financial exchanges.’

‘I wonder if he was ever married? My tenner says he was,’ said Price.