‘You don’t even know yet that Fiona is a victim,’ Heather pointed out quickly. ‘She might have just wandered off. People do that, sometimes – life gets a bit too much, or she’s in debt, or fallen out with her family.’ She smiled. ‘I left home as soon as I could, didn’t think too closely about what I was doing. I’d just had enough of it all. Maybe she just had enough of it all too.’

Parker was nodding, but not smiling.

After a moment he picked up one of the photographs she’d seen earlier – the one of an untidy bedroom. He passed it to her over the desk. It was clear immediately that something terrible had happened in the room. Shoes and bags were scattered on the floor, and there were dark patches of what was clearly blood on the carpet – not a huge amount, but enough to imply a certain level of violence.

‘This is Fiona Graham’s bedroom,’ Parker said, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘There’s more blood on the landing, on the stairs. Pictures knocked off the wall, stuff like that. She didn’t leave under her own steam, Heather.’

‘No. No, I guess not.’ Heather stared at the photo, trying to take in every detail. ‘Inspector, if there is a link between my parents and Fiona Graham … what would that mean? What if my mother was sitting on something, something she knew and felt she couldn’t tell anyone, not even me? I mean, my mother killed herself just as these murders started and now this?’

The sad, scuffed trainers, the pile of dog-eared paperbacks on the bedside table. It could be her room. There was a story here, the sort of story that could get her back onto any newspaper she wanted, but more and more it looked like writing that story would mean discovering a side to her mother she couldn’t have guessed at.

Parker stood up suddenly.

‘Listen, the coffee here is bloody awful. Do you want to go and, uh, get some lunch?’

Looking up, she saw that there was a faint blush across the tops of his cheeks. Smiling, she put the photo down.

‘Let’s do that.’

They went to a place around the corner, a small cosy restaurant that Heather guessed wasn’t a regular police hangout. Parker ordered a kind of complicated sandwich that promptly fell apart when he tried to pick it up. Heather stuck to a pasta salad, from which she picked out all the bits of meat. To her surprise, he ordered a beer, and when she raised her eyebrows he just smiled.

‘So, what’s your history with Michael Reave?’ she asked, when she was halfway through her demolished salad. ‘You’ve had to deal with him before, I’m guessing.’