Ending the call, with Laura promising to message her in the morning with how Cassie was, Meg decided to watch Twelve Angry Men again. It was about the trial of a young Puerto Rican man accused of murdering his father. The evidence was compelling, especially to an all-white male jury back in 1957. One of the things that had resonated with her was a juror who reminded her of Gwen’s protestations that she did not want to miss Royal Ascot. He was wanting a quick ‘guilty’ verdict, because he had tickets to a major baseball game.

Meg made herself some supper, then settled down in front of the television with a tray and a notebook and pen. As the film progressed, she repeatedly stopped it and noted down the arguments the actor, Henry Fonda, used to change the minds of one after another of the jury, until he had them all finally convinced.

She fell asleep as the end credits rolled.

60

Thursday 16 May

At 8.30 a.m., Roy Grace sat with his team around the conference table in the Major Crime suite. A series of photographs were stuck to a fourth whiteboard behind him. They showed a replica set-up, outside the Starrs’ Chichester house, of the crime scene that had been there the previous week. The cordons, scene guard, a high-visibility police vehicle and a number of police officers.

‘One week on from the anniversary of when we believe Stuie Starr was murdered, we set up a facsimile of the scene,’ he informed them. ‘A team of officers were deployed to the area to stop and question all vehicle drivers and pedestrian passers-by, to establish if they had been there on the previous Wednesday and Thursday and had seen anything. DC Alldridge led the operation. What do you have to report, John?’

The DC replied, ‘Boss, we spoke to a number of people who had been in the area, and logged their names and contact details, which I have here.’ He tapped a document in front of him. ‘Unfortunately, none of them were able to provide any useful information at this stage.’

Grace thanked him. ‘I sat down with Alex Call last night and we’ve agreed a number of further submissions to the forensic lab, and hopefully we should get some results in the next few days. Nothing fresh has come up from the press and media appeal or house-to-house last week, nor from a CCTV and ANPR trawl. We’ve also drawn a blank on our drugs intelligence sweep. So, at the moment we are struggling to find any witnesses. But someone must have seen something. We believe at least two people carried out the attack. Someone must have seen them arrive and enter the property or leave it.’

At the end of the briefing, Grace returned to his office. Shortly after, Norman Potting appeared at his door.

‘Brief update for you, chief,’ Norman Potting said, walking into Roy Grace’s office. ‘About our one-eyed monster.’