In front of me, too close, was DS Craig Cooper. Red-faced, puffy, damp. There was a small cut above his right eye. I knew this was a bad thought, but if someone had smacked him, I reckoned he deserved it. Next to Craig – turned slightly away – was DC Fiona Redfern, usually competent almost to the point of being annoying, but currently distracted by a workplace conflict I hadn’t got to the bottom of. Then Jai, not looking too bad, but unable to stop moaning about the weather for more than five seconds, partly to wind up Craig, who could never grasp that Jai had been born in England and was not acclimatised to the weather in the Punjab. Then a few more DCs I didn’t know well, and then the indexers, including a new civilian investigator called Donna, shipped in and paid a pittance to type stuff into our HOLMES database. She was a retired crime scene officer, so at least she knew the ropes.

I steeled myself to do the briefing. This case had all the makings of being seriously high profile and I knew my boss, DCI Richard Atkins, would be concerned about me. My gran had recently died in circumstances which he knew had pushed all my buttons. But if anything it had left me numb, lacking in emotion, closer to what Richard would find desirable in a detective. Maybe this could be a chance for me to not get too involved. To prove I could follow the rules and do everything by the book. But for now, Richard wasn’t around. He was on his way home from sunning himself in a secret location that we were all very intrigued about.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s get started. Yes, it’s a little warm and it would be nice if we had air-con, but we don’t, so let’s consider all the moaning about that done. We have a high-risk misper, Violet Armstrong, aged eighteen, disappeared from the abattoir at Gritton village yesterday evening. The last person to see her was a neighbour, when Violet went out at around eight.’

All eyes were on the over-sized image of Violet’s face – dark eyes bright with expectation, confident straight-toothed smile, peachy skin.

‘The actual Violet Armstrong?’ Craig said. ‘Bikini-strutting Violet?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The actual Violet Armstrong.’

‘Wow.’ Craig licked his lips in an unpleasant manner. ‘Her videos are—’

‘Yes, thank you, Craig,’ I said. ‘We’re all familiar with her videos.’

Craig smiled. ‘Oh, are you? There’s a thought.’

‘A more pleasant one than picturing you leering over them,’ Jai said.

‘Enough of the videos,’ I snapped. ‘She’s a high-risk missing person. Treat her like anyone else.’

Fiona gave Craig a look of contempt before turning back to me. ‘Why was she at the abattoir at night?’