Trudy nodded. ‘No, sir,’ she agreed. ‘But they really were too indistinct to draw any conclusions. And with it snowing on and off all through that night and the next morning …’ She gave a graphic shrug.

‘Yes. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what the post-mortem brings to light. At this stage it seems most likely that death will have been due to injuries sustained in the crash, or hypothermia – possibly a combination of both – in which case we can get on with putting it all to bed. All right, carry on as you were.’

Trudy bit back a happy smile and left. So it wasn’t going to be taken away from her just yet!

She went back to her desk, but her happy smile abruptly disappeared at the sight of the man who was waiting there for her. Around thirty, tall, good-looking with black hair and distinctive green eyes, he grinned widely when she approached.

‘If it isn’t my favourite constable,’ Duncan Gillingham, reporter for the Oxford Tribune, greeted her cheerfully. ‘What’s all this I hear about a dead man in a car in north Oxford?’

Trudy sighed. ‘I might have known,’ she muttered. How did the press get to hear these things so quickly? Why couldn’t they just stay at home in the warm like most sensible people and let everyone else get on with their own business?

Especially this particular specimen!

She cast a quick, worried glance at DI Jennings’s door, hoping he hadn’t been informed that the press had come sniffing around. Catching the direction of her gaze, Duncan started to walk rapidly towards her boss’s office.

‘You can’t go in there!’ Trudy shouted, literally running to put herself between him and his goal, and firmly blocking the doorway. ‘Who let you in here anyway?’ she demanded.

‘Some old bloke or other at the front desk,’ he said vaguely. ‘Can’t interfere with the free press you know,’ he added, tutting teasingly. ‘And let’s face it, there’s no one around here to throw me out on my ear, is there?’ he said, giving the all-but-deserted room a mocking glance.

‘That doesn’t mean you can just waltz in …’ Trudy was saying hotly when she felt, rather than heard, the door open behind her.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ DI Jennings said, catching first his constable’s angry eye, and then the amused eye of the man with her. ‘And you are?’

‘He’s a reporter, sir,’ Trudy said quickly. ‘He wanted to know about the fatal car accident. I told him—’

‘To sling my hook,’ Duncan said genially, cutting her off in mid-stride, and (probably unintentionally) earning her bonus points with her superior, who had no time for journalists either. ‘But as I was just telling her, the public have a right to know. Care to comment, Inspector?’