Jennings merely grunted. In the past, he’d had to have more to do with Dr Clement Ryder than he’d ever wanted. Why the man couldn’t act more like a regular coroner, and just do his job and leave the police to do theirs, he didn’t know. But no, he had to stick his nose in – and, even more annoyingly, often come up trumps.

‘And that brings me to the purpose of this visit. I’ve had a word with the chief constable, and he’s agreed with my proposal.’

At this, Harry Jennings felt his heart rate began to ratchet up a notch or two, and a slow, sick feeling sidled into his stomach, making him swallow hard. ‘Sir?’ he asked warily.

‘We might turn a blind eye to things, Harry, but that doesn’t mean to say that the powers-that-be haven’t noticed that that girl of yours and our coroner have developed a habit of, well, shall we say, “supplementing” our more normal lines of inquiry?’

At this point, Harry Jennings got a really bad feeling. ‘Sir,’ he began to object, but wasn’t allowed to finish.

‘Now, I know we can’t expect WPC Loveday and Dr Ryder to help you on the actual Iris Carmody case—’

‘No, sir, we definitely can’t! WPC Loveday has barely completed her probationary period and—’

‘But Dr Ryder, as city coroner, has before now done some, shall we say, follow-up inquiries on a number of his inquest cases, isn’t that so?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Harry admitted miserably.

‘And with some considerable success?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he was again forced to agree.

‘Very well then. As I said, the chief constable is with me on this, Inspector. After the inquest on my son is over – no matter what the verdict may be – you will approach Dr Ryder and ask him to make further discreet inquiries about my son and the circumstances of his death.’

‘Superintendent, sir, I don’t think that’s really wise …’

Keith Finch gave a harsh bark of laughter, and for the first time looked seriously angry. ‘It may not be wise, Inspector,’ he snapped, leaning forward in his chair, ‘but everyone’s going around saying that my boy – my boy! – murdered that girl and then killed himself.’ Suddenly he slammed the flat of his palm down on Jennings’s desk so hard and fast, that Jennings nearly went into orbit. The sharp ricochet of sound had the heads of the police officers in the outer room swivelling in their direction.

‘And I’m not having it, Jennings. Is that clear?’ Superintendent Finch said through gritted teeth.

Harry nodded wretchedly. ‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed. Clearly the Super still had some clout with the higher-ups, and he was in no mood to be thwarted.