Paula wished she had Elinor’s optimism. In spite of years of watching patients fail to recover, she still approached every case as if a good outcome were possible. ‘Those cases, though, they all involve very young women or young girls. They’re at an age where they’re compliant and impressionable. They can be bullied and manipulated. They haven’t learned how to stand up for themselves against an adult. It doesn’t work that way with women of our age. We’re too bloody stroppy.’

‘I suppose. What’s it like, working a major case with a new team?’

Paula turned on to the main road that would take them to Kenton Vale School. It was clogged with traffic, cars and vans all doggedly trying to get from one side of the city centre to the other. Times like this, she wished she had a blue light to clamp on top of her anonymous little car. Put the fear of god in White Van Man and carve a path through traffic. ‘It doesn’t feel like a team yet. Fielding is keeping me close. I’ve not had the chance to bond with the rest of the squad. Plus there’s the baggage of coming from the MIT. That’s a red rag to a bull for some people. It’s a no-win. If you do something smart, it’s “Ooh, get you, who do you think you are?” and if you fall over your own feet, it’s “Not as clever as you think you are, are you?” I’m only trying to keep my head down and do my job. And that’s not easy in this case.’

‘Why not?’

‘Partly because everybody knows I knew Bev, so they assume it’s going to be personal. And partly because…’ She momentarily lifted her hands from the wheel in a gesture of frustration. ‘I can’t really tell you. Just, something that’s… problematic about the evidence.’

‘Can you tell me how it’s problematic?’

Paula blew out a puff of breath. ‘It’s a matter of interpretation. And I want to be clear about it before I lay it out for Fielding. It would have been a lot more straightforward with Carol. I could have counted on her and the rest of the team not to leap to the wrong conclusion. I don’t know that I can do that with Fielding. And it’s not the kind of thing I can keep to myself. Plus the only explanation for it is impossible. So I have to figure out a way through it.’

‘You will.’ Elinor’s confidence wasn’t rubbing off on her partner and she could tell. ‘If you take the next left, you can escape the traffic and circle round the industrial estate and come at the school from the other direction.’

Paula gave her a quick glance. ‘How do you know that? Have you been moonlighting as a cabbie?’