‘And I’m not either,’ Elinor said. ‘Someone has to do the sleeping.’ She kissed Paula on the cheek. ‘I’m going to leave you to it. Don’t stay up too late, ladies.’ She patted Carol on the shoulder as she passed. A day ago Carol would have flinched at the contact. Now, it felt good.

They all waited politely till Elinor left the room, then Carol said, ‘I take it as a given that none of us believes Tony could be responsible?’ Paula looked outraged, Stacey rolled her eyes. ‘OK, I had to ask. So I’m tasked with undermining the case against him enough to make Fielding back away from charging him.’

‘And you don’t have much time. She’s going to want to reinterview him first thing and my guess is that unless Bronwen Scott gives her a very good reason not to, she’s going to charge him at the end of that interview.’

‘Would demolishing your DNA evidence be a good enough reason?’ Carol asked sweetly.

Paula sat up straight. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s remembered how it got there.’ Carol revealed what Tony had told her earlier, leaving them both shaking their heads in disbelief. ‘Stacey, Paula told me you’ve found your way into Nadia Wilkowa’s data. Is that right?’

Stacey nodded. ‘It wasn’t hard.’ She tapped a couple of keys and angled the screen so they could both see a diary page. ‘I merged the data on her laptop and her phone so we have as full a picture as possible of her day to day life. So…’ She clicked on something and the display changed. ‘On any given day I can tell you what her business appointments were, whether she had any personal appointments, what texts she sent and received and her emails.’

‘Did I ever tell you how much you scare me?’ Carol gave Stacey a thumbs-up.

‘Just make sure you stay on her good side,’ Paula muttered.

‘So can you pull up dates she had appointments at Bradfield Moor?’

Stacey reclaimed the laptop. They waited while the keyboard whispered under her fingers, then she turned it to face them. ‘Five times since she started the job. She had meetings with Joanna Moore, the Medical Director.’

‘Can you email me those dates? I need to compare them with the incident log at Bradfield Moor. One of those dates should correspond to an occasion when Tony was punched in the face by a patient and had a nosebleed.’

Stacey snorted. ‘Nothing changes, does it?’

‘The thing is, I do actually remember that incident,’ Carol said. ‘His nose was swollen like a strawberry for a few days. It was last year some time. I can’t be more precise than that.’

‘I swear to God, you couldn’t make him up,’ Stacey muttered.

‘Will they let you see the log?’ Paula asked.