“An inter—where the blazes do you learn these things?” Rosie asked.

“Telly, mostly,” Janelle said. “Is Jem off work today?”

“I think so, but I’m not.”

Janelle made a point of checking her watch. “You’ve got plenty of time to drop by her house on the way in.”

Her nonchalance made Rosie laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”

Janelle punched Rosie’s thigh, a sign of affection that had endured since toddlerhood. “Text me and let me know how you get on,” she said, and proceeded to roll Rosie off the beanbag.

Rosie’s mam waylaid her before she could open the front door, pressing a tinfoil parcel into her hands and kissing her cheek.

“Have that for your lunch,” she said. The subtle arch of her eyebrow told Rosie she hadn’t been fooled after all. “Make up for the breakfast you hardly touched.”

“Thanks, Mam.”

Rosie didn’t say anything else. She couldn’t. She gave her mam a hug and hurried through the rain toward her car. Convinced the last thing Jem needed was a predawn wake-up call, she defied Janelle’s edict and drove straight to work, where she walked into a mess room abuzz with anticipation. Kash grabbed her by the shoulders as soon as he saw her, spinning her around and marching her to her locker.

“Come on, come on, we’re going in five minutes,” he said.

She started to change into her uniform, heedless of the crowd. “Going where?”

“Major Crimes got an ID on a bloke spotted with Kyle Parker not long before the kid turned up dead. He was caught on CCTV. A clip was shown on the news this morning, but they put it up on the Facebook page overnight and hit the jackpot within a couple of hours.”

“Crikey,” she said. She hadn’t told him about the footage Steph had shown her, but she assumed this was the same bloke. The tape obviously hadn’t remained a Major Crimes exclusive for very long. “What’s our part in it all?”

Kash held his nose with one hand and set her boots by her feet with the other. “Tactical Aid are making the arrest. Steph wants us there for crowd control and fingertip once the dust has settled.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Cedar Road, Heaton Chapel. Looking on Street View, it’s proper leafy suburbia, all tree-lined pavements and double-parked cars. By the time we get there, the school run will be in full swing, hence the crowd control.”

She paused halfway through fastening her laces. “Is Steph sure he’ll be in?”

“An unmarked car parked by the address says yes. If he leaves for work in the meantime, Tactical Aid will grab him on the fly.”

“Excellent,” she said, thrilled with the break in the case and at having a task to keep her busy.