And then you looked more closely and saw the pre-torn strips of duct tape hanging from a shelf. And the trails of blood and what looked like skin snagged on the rough concrete floor. And the metal eyes screwed in strategically in three places. ‘Oh, fuck, the freezer,’ Paula said softly and started across the garage.

‘Wait,’ the CSI shouted. ‘You’re fucking up the evidence.’

‘There’s a woman in that freezer!’ Paula shouted over her shoulder, breaking into a run, blood and adrenalin pounding in her head. She pulled the lid up. The rubber seal released loud as thunder in her ears. And there was Marie, curled in the foetal position, in a pool of blood and piss. Blonde and bruised and battered. Still as death. Paula reached in and felt warm flesh, the flutter of a pulse under her jaw. ‘Get her the fuck out of there, she’s still alive.’

‘We need photos,’ the CSI shouted at her.

‘I’m right here,’ the videographer said. ‘Step away a second, Paula.’

All her instincts screaming against it, Paula did as she was asked. But only for as long as it took her to count to five. Then she was yelling at them all to help her, to call an ambulance, to get Marie Mather out of what was intended to be her coffin and back into life.

Back at Skenfrith Street, Fielding was steadfastly ignoring the fact that she still had Tony Hill in custody even though the compass needle was swinging round to point unwaveringly elsewhere. This was supposed to be her big day, the press conference where she got to announce the arrest of a high-profile double murderer. In her head, it was the point where she put down a marker that she was destined for the top.

Instead, she’d had to listen to Bronwen Scott’s pitiful attempt to explain away the evidence against Tony Hill with an improbable story of nosebleeds and a collision in a corridor. It was obviously a fabrication that would fall to pieces under scrutiny, but checking it out would waste time while the clock was ticking. It was clearly a ruse to postpone charging him, so she’d have to let him go on police bail. And that would give that bitch Scott time to line up her so-called experts to cast doubt on the fingermark.