The living room was sparsely and shabbily furnished, and smelled like the day after a party – the kind where everyone’s smoked and drunk too much and someone’s puked in a wastepaper bin. An ancient and wheezy Jack Russell sprawled on the sofa, looking around the room like a feudal lord surveying his property.

The little girl looked up at Jai and me. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ She was so quaintly polite, she seemed out of place in the dingy environment, like if you invited the queen along to your local boozer. I peered through a door to the tiny kitchen. Old plastic milk cartons and unwashed tins cluttered every inch of available work surface, and white dog hairs floated over the vinyl floor. Normally I never turned down a cuppa but …

‘I’ll make the drinks.’ Mandy disappeared into the kitchen.

‘I need a beer,’ Gary snapped, and followed Mandy, leaving Jai and me with the little girl. She gave us an open smile, unperturbed by her parents having almost ended up smeared on the pavement outside. ‘Would you like to watch telly with me?’

‘Not today, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘We haven’t got much time, and we need to talk to your daddy.’

‘Nobody ever has time.’ Her tone was so tragic I nearly found myself agreeing to watch Frozen with her. I sometimes wondered if I was really detective material. ‘Mummy’s always sad. And Daddy gets angry, and then there’s no one to play with me.’ I made a mental note of that. Daddy gets angry. And he clearly knew how to handle himself.

The kitchen door bashed open and Gary clomped into the living room. I was struck again by the incongruity of him. He was like a Hollywood actor doing his best to disguise his good looks in order to play the role of a scumbag.

Jai stood and held out his hand. ‘DS Jai Sanghera.’

Gary reached slowly forward and shook Jai’s hand. His face looked like he’d just found a body full of maggots, a look that was regrettably familiar. What was his problem? I remembered Daniel Twigg saying he was racist, and felt anger welling up inside me. Jai had nearly got hurt protecting this ungrateful bastard.

Gary spoke to me, ignoring Jai. ‘Are you going to arrest those animal rights maniacs now?’

Jai’s expression was unreadable. People still did a version of this to me every now and then. Addressed whatever man was in the room and treated me like a small and rather uninteresting piece of furniture. A dresser or sideboard perhaps. I hadn’t seen the racial equivalent done to Jai before, but he’d told me about it. It made me want to put my hands around Gary’s fat neck and squeeze until he passed out.

‘Let it go, Meg,’ Jai said, under his breath.