Back in the office, she brought up the West Midlands Police’s Twitter feed. She’d been checking it every ten or fifteen minutes, skimming over cycle safety and community policing notices to the frequent ones about serious crimes – another stabbing in Handsworth, a fatal hit-and-run in Balsall Heath, a slavery charge brought against two brothers in Lozells. There’d been a run of tweets with photos hashtagged MISSING. ‘Have you seen Bill Scott? He’s missing from West Bromwich and we’re really concerned for him. Please call 101 with any information.’ She’d scrolled through them looking – hoping – for Josh; instead, with a jolt, she’d seen Corinna’s face. Murder enquiry launched following Edgbaston fire. Corinna Legge (pictured) sadly passed away yesterday. Heart in her throat, Robin clicked on the link and read the short post on the police site but there was nothing new, still just the barest details of the fire, the search for Josh Legge (pictured), believed to have been at the scene when the blaze broke out.

All the local news sources had the story – the Birmingham Post, the Mail and Midlands Today – but again, none of them had a single new detail. Either the police were keeping information back or they didn’t have anything.

Corinna Legge sadly passed away yesterday. She read the words again. They were ungraspable, completely surreal. Aliens land in the Bull Ring; Elvis spotted at Villa Park; Corinna Legge sadly passed away yesterday.

Yesterday – it was only technically still true. It was one o’clock, already almost thirty-six hours now since the neighbours had sounded the alarm, a day and a half. Rin was falling further and further behind, slipping away.

Robin reached for the notebook and turned to a new page. ‘Assuming arson’, she wrote, and underlined it. Quickly, she put down everything that came into her head, the earliest ideas – botched burglary; extortion attempt; feud with a third party; the road rage she’d mentioned off the cuff to the police – and the ones that, as the hours had started to stretch, she’d begun to have to entertain: someone Josh had crossed in business; something at Corinna’s work; someone obsessed with one of them – a man or woman scorned, a bunny boiler; the partner of that person.

Revenge.

She read the list back. Burglary was still the only thing on it that seemed plausible. Rin and Josh woken in the small hours by a noise downstairs, investigating and confronting whoever it was they found, refusing to stand down. They would have tried to fight back, defend their home – yes, they would.