At this moment the officer appeared in the doorway. He gave a small nod for her to join him. In the largest cutlery drawer in the kitchen there was a wooden-framed knife block containing six razor-sharp carving knives, two with a serrated edge, and the blades slightly curved. As if Farah knew what they had found, she came and stood in the hallway and said that they were the property of her husband. He worked in a butcher shop and they were required for his work. Jane ignored her and gave the officer instructions to place all the knives, along with the block, into evidence bags.

Jane had now seen and heard enough. She was seriously concerned for Yasmin Farook.

*

By the time Jane made it to the interrogation room, Farook had already been questioned for an hour by DCI Tyler and Spencer. She was told Farook refused to have a solicitor and had, to all intents and purposes, been exceptionally forthcoming.

Jane had only just completed writing up her report from the visit to his flat when Spencer came into the incident room. She was quite surprised to see him as he went over to his desk to take out some aspirin from his drawer.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked as he took the aspirin with a cold cup of coffee left on his desk.

‘He’s holding nothing back. He’s admitted straightaway to murdering Charles Foxley. He was also determined that we understood Michael Langton had absolutely no idea why he had asked him to lie for him. And Mandy Pilkington was also unaware of his intentions.’ Spencer shrugged his shoulders. ‘He was almost freakily calm and claimed she’d been incredibly kind. She had taken him on years ago, despite his police record; he even went into great detail about his assault charge, which happened when he was working as a bouncer in a club. He insisted that he didn’t intend to hurt the man but had been attempting to refuse him entry when the man had thrown a punch, which then led to a number of men ganging up on him. This was also mentioned by his defense at the time.

Spencer looked at his watch. ‘He’s just having a toilet break now. I’m going to have to go back in. Tyler is very impressive, but he can’t get him to implicate Mandy Pilkington in the drugs. It’s the only time he became a bit agitated, and we both think it’s vital we keep him steady.’

Jane handed Spencer the note in the plastic cover. She quickly described the interior of the flat, and explained that Farook’s wife had not spoken English and his sister-in-law, Farah Fareedi, had dominated their conversation.

A uniformed officer came to the door of the incident room and signaled to Spencer to go back into the interview room.