I had stopped moving. I leaned back against the sink and ran my hands over my face, took a deep open-mouthed breath through my fingers. The eco-righteous bulbs were kicking in, turning the kitchen white-edged and humming and dangerous. “They’re going to say Kevin killed Rosie, Liv. I saw the face on Scorcher. He didn’t say it, but that’s the way he’s thinking. They’re going to say Kev killed Rosie and then took himself out when he thought we were getting close.”

Olivia had her fingertips to her mouth. “My God. Why? Do they . . . What makes them think . . . Why?”

“Rosie left a note—half a note. The other half turned up on Kevin’s body. Anyone who shoved him out that window could have put it there, but that’s not the way Scorcher thinks. He’s thinking he’s got an obvious explanation and a nice neat double solve, case closed, no need for interrogations or warrants or a trial or any of that fancy stuff. Why make life complicated?” I shoved myself off the sink and started pacing again. “He’s Murder. Murder are a shower of fucking cretins. All they can see is what’s laid out in a straight line in front of their noses; ask them to look just an inch off that line, just for once in their bloody lives, and they’re lost. Half a day in Undercover and they’d all be dead.”

Olivia smoothed a long lock of ash-gold hair and watched it tighten. She said, “I suppose, much of the time, the straightforward explanation is the right one.”

“Yeah. Right. Great. I’m sure it is. But this time, Liv, this time it’s all wrong. This time, the straightforward explanation is a fucking travesty.”

For a second Olivia said nothing, and I wondered if she had twigged who the straightforward explanation must have been, right up until Kev took his swan dive. Then she said, very carefully, “It’s been a long time since you last saw Kevin. Can you be absolutely sure . . . ?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m positive. I spent the last few days with him. He was the same guy I knew when we were kids. Better hair, a few more inches each way, but he was the same guy. You can’t mistake that. I know everything important there was to know about him, and he wasn’t a killer and he wasn’t a suicide.”

“Have you tried saying this to Scorcher?”

“Of course I have. I might as well have been talking to the wall. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so he didn’t hear it.”

“What about talking to his superintendent? Would he listen?”