The snowball had avalanched after that, and by the time Maggie had persuaded Renshaw to leave the office and come home with her around midnight, ACC Marcus Bailey was suspended pending an inquiry, while Renshaw had been given a leave of absence on compassionate grounds, the first few hours of which she spent getting drunk on Maggie’s sofa.

Still woolly-headed herself, Maggie clambered out of bed to get a drink of water. In the kitchen was a bouquet of flowers she’d come home to find outside her front door last night, signed for and brought up to the top floor by one of her neighbours. A vivid explosion of orange and pink roses, lilies and flora, they were from Belmar and Allie Small to wish her a happy birthday. When Renshaw saw them she had berated Maggie for not revealing it was her thirtieth and insisted they open a bottle of champagne Maggie had been saving for a special occasion.

As Maggie downed the water, she wondered who was going to be brought in to take over now that Renshaw was no longer SIO. Their Superintendent had agreed that Burton could oversee the excavation at the school that morning but a new lead detective would be appointed by Monday.

She went back to bed and drifted off again, only to be woken an hour later by Burton ringing.

‘What’s up?’ she answered groggily.

‘Is Renshaw with you?’

‘Yeah, but she’s asleep.’

‘I thought she’d want to know that she was right. We’ve found a woman’s body wedged into the foundations.’

Maggie bolted upright.

‘Seriously? How did she die?’

‘Looks like strangulation but she was also badly beaten, which would account for the blood. We’re treating it as murder.’

‘Do we know who she is yet?’

‘Yep, her name’s Violet Castle. She’s got a distinctive tattoo, a peacock with its tail fanning across the top of her back, and when we ran it through the PNC it came up that she’s been picked up before for solicitation.’

Maggie’s hungover brain needed a minute to slot the pieces together.

‘She’s a prostitute? Do you think the notebook was hers?’

‘I’m willing to bet it was. Benji must’ve found it on the building site or somewhere close to it. Mal’s going to run it for prints to make sure.’

‘Christ. So let me get this straight – ACC Bailey was the client of a prostitute who’s just turned up dead in the grounds of a school where an eleven-year-old boy died – the same boy who appears to have found the prostitute’s client list with ACC Bailey’s phone number on it.’

‘I’d say that’s pretty much it.’

‘How the hell am I going to explain this to Anna when she wakes up?’

There was a noise behind her and Maggie looked round to see Renshaw in the doorway, her face twisted in anguish.