‘My first case as SIO,’ Ed said. ‘Senior Investigating Officer. It was a frustrating case from the outset and I was never really happy with the outcome. Don’t get me wrong – there was no doubt that Mike had killed the guy. But it always bugged me that we never found out why he’d done it, or who the victim was. We got the conviction we wanted and I had to move on, but it was always there, a niggle at the back of the mind. This last week, it’s all come back to me, and I’ve been trying to work out what we missed back then.’

She wanted to tell him. But she had no proof. Not yet.

‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid,’ Dee said. ‘Until yesterday, I’d barely given Annie’s father a second thought. She’s been my whole focus, not him.’

‘Except if Annie turns out to be someone else, then that might explain Mike’s actions. Because I’m telling you, Dee, that murder was completely out of character. In this job, you get a feel for who the real crooks are, the bad ones who deserve what’s coming to them. Mike Holden was never one of those. He was a decent man who did a terrible thing. Now he’s dead and I know, in my gut, that those two events are related. We missed something during the investigation ten years ago. Because of that, a decent man was sent to prison. Now he’s dead and I feel as if I’ve failed him all over again.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ Dee said. ‘Whatever his reasons for killing that man, it was still his decision to do it. That’s on him, not you.’

Ed spread his hands open in a gesture she remembered. It was his way of saying he didn’t know what to do.

‘Did Annie call you?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you were in London that day?’

‘Fiona called me,’ he said. ‘Annie’s mother. She said a journalist had been harassing Annie, trying to get her to do an interview about the murder. She was quite upset, but there was something not quite right about the conversation. I felt as if she was asking me to do something without coming right out and saying what it was. So I decided to take a few hours off work and go and see Annie myself.’

‘But when you arrived at her house, you found me instead.’

‘Lucky me.’

Dee felt the rush of heat to her cheeks. When she glanced at Ed, he was smiling. She looked away quickly, the heat intensifying.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’