‘Believe me, if I’d caught the bastard, he’d have wished he was dead. I smacked him and he ran away. I got some of his skin under my nails. It’s with the lab. But anyway, we need to talk about the case. Where are we at?’

‘We’ve not managed to locate Daniel Twigg,’ Jai said. ‘On the plus side, Justice for Violet took a night off from killing animals to stampede around the countryside hunting Daniel.’

My judgement was so far off I was like an inverse lie-detector. I’d trusted Dad, and I’d thought Daniel was a good person. How pathetically wrong could one woman be? ‘I shudder to think what they’ll do if they find him,’ I said.

‘It’s a bit alarming,’ Jai said. ‘With the weather and the rival gangs in balaclavas and meat suits, it all feels quite post-apocalyptic.’

I knew what Jai meant. Everything was getting out of hand. Civilisation felt more precarious than it ever had in my lifetime. As if it could suddenly fall apart and we’d be killing the aristocracy, looting, plundering, and eating rats.

‘For God’s sake,’ Craig said. ‘Are we going to discuss the case?’

‘Sorry, Craig,’ Jai said. ‘I used a grown-up word.’

‘Some of us have been doing our job,’ Craig said. ‘I’ve found out Gary had a lot of enemies. Owed a lot of people money. Pissed a lot of people off. We’re going through it all. But if Daniel killed Violet, he’s the obvious suspect.’

‘It could be a copy-cat killing,’ Fiona said. ‘They put the pig’s head on to make it look like it was connected to Violet.’

‘We’re waiting on analysis of the fibres and the hair we found on him,’ Craig said.

‘And in relation to Violet,’ Jai said. ‘We know Daniel’s razor was in the bin liner with Violet’s clothes, Violet’s blood was on Daniel’s overalls, he has keys to the abattoir, and he had no alibi.’

‘Yes, Jai, but do we have any actual evidence?’ I said.

Jai shot me a look.

‘I know, I know, I’m kidding. The evidence currently leads to Daniel having killed Violet.’ I hoped they’d put the tremor in my voice down to lack of sleep, and not shame at what a fool I’d been.