He had no idea how long had passed before Paula said gently, ‘Tony? Can you answer the question, please? Can you explain how your blood came to be —’

His expression was stricken. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, his voice dry and tight.

Fielding shook her head. ‘I’d have thought you could do better than that.’ She turned back to her folder.

Before she could ask another question, Paula’s phone beeped. She glanced at the screen then showed it to Fielding, who nodded and got to her feet. ‘Interview suspended.’ Ushering Paula ahead of her, she left the room. Tony watched them go, feeling genuine fear for the first time since he’d arrived at Skenfrith Street.

‘Fuck,’ Fielding said as she closed the door behind her. ‘He’s got nothing. No rebuttal, no excuse, nothing. Now, let’s see what your pal Dr Myers has for us.’ The text from Dave Myers had simply said, Buy me a coffee. Seven minutes later Paula pulled in by the coffee stall that crouched under the North Stand of Bradfield Victoria’s premier league stadium. Dave liked meeting here; it reminded him of American cop shows, glossing their dull lives with a spurious glamour. Seeing her car, he stepped away from the counter carrying two coffees in a cardboard tray. He looked worryingly glum. His face fell further when Fielding climbed out of the passenger seat.

He gave a wry smile and passed a coffee to each of the women. Paula leaned on the open driver’s door and peeled away a section of the lid and enjoyed the aroma of the spicy dark roast the Italian owner preferred. She had a feeling there wasn’t going to be much else to enjoy at this encounter.

‘Nice of you to offer my sergeant a coffee, Dr Myers.’

‘We go back a long way,’ Paula said.

‘So what do you have for us?’

‘That evidence bag you left us this morning – there was a phone in there, right?’

‘Yes. Presumably Bev’s,’ Paula said.

‘It is hers. We checked.’ He tugged at his soul patch. ‘There’s a partial thumbprint on the back of the phone.’ He took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Fielding. It was an enlarged photocopy of a fingermark, smudged down one side and slightly distorted where the thumb that made it had shifted slightly. ‘Because I know you’re in a hurry on this one, I gave it to my best fingerprint tech as a matter of urgency. She ran it through the AFIS database. Nothing came back from criminal records. But in Bradfield, we keep our own database of prints for elimination purposes. Serving police officers, CSIs, pathologists. And anybody else who regularly attends crime scenes or has contact with evidence.’

Fielding looked visibly brighter. ‘I hope this is going where I think it is.’