I remind myself that I’m only doing my job and sometimes my job gets a bit scary. Not everyone wants the truth to come out, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying to find it. I don’t bow to intimidation – no matter how intimidating – although it does strike me as odd that it seems to be the case that someone knows I’m in contact with Jamesy Harte.

After talking to him yesterday, I’ve no reason to think I shouldn’t be speaking to him. He made quite a compelling case and I’m even more of the mind that he wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to commit such a crime, never mind try to hide it.

He has as much of a right to have his voice heard as the Doherty family – more even, if he is telling the truth.

I turn the shower off, wrap a towel around me and play back the interview with Jamesy on my phone while I dry off and get dressed. His voice. His naivety. His pain.

He’s either telling the truth, or he’s as good a liar as they come.

Chapter Fourteen

Ingrid

Sunday, 20 October 2019

Detective Sergeant Eve King arrives at my flat just over an hour after I call the police. In the cold light of day, as the early winter sun streams in through the window, I feel less spooked. Not much less spooked, but enough that I don’t want to throw up every time I look at the paint on the wall.

I’ve just made up a pot of fresh coffee, when the door buzzer sounds, and I let DS King in. She’s accompanied by her tall, gangly colleague, DC Mark Black. All of our paths have crossed before and I know DS King sees me as a thorn in her side. I wonder if she is experiencing a sense of schadenfreude right now.

‘Ms Devlin,’ Eve King says as I open the door.

I spot a uniformed officer further down the corridor. No doubt this will be talk of the whole building.

‘I think we know each other well enough that you can call me Ingrid now,’ I reply.

DS King neither smiles nor tells me I’m okay to use her first name in return; instead she glances around, takes a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket and puts them on.

‘You said you had a break-in?’

‘That’s right. I did. When I came home last night, just after nine, the door was open. My door, and the door to the complex. I went into my bedroom and saw this …’

I turn to lead her to my room, but she doesn’t follow. When I reach for the handle to open the door, I hear an intake of breath.

‘Try to touch as little as possible,’ she says. ‘In case there is trace evidence.’