The words of the Murder Manual were ingrained in his brain, if not his soul, playing to him as he approached.

Who? What? Why? When? Where? And very importantly – How?

Davey turned to greet him as he approached.

‘What do you have, Paul?’

‘Only what I told you, boss. Nothing more at this stage, I’m afraid. Pathologist is on his way.’ He opened a flap in the tent and stepped aside to give Grace a view of the victim.

A black kid, eighteen years or so old, with a massive wound in his neck. Vacant eyes wide open. Short, bleached dreadlocks. A white, blood-soaked tank top. Dark tracksuit bottoms. Brand-new trainers. A large stain of pooled, drying blood on the pavement.

‘He wanted to be a doctor, his girlfriend told the first officers who attended,’ Davey said.

Anger flared in Roy Grace. Anger against the perpetrators, whoever the hell they were. The same anger he had felt so many times during the past six months. Anger at his impotence. Yes, he had made a difference. During his time here in this role the number of knife-crime deaths had reduced. But there were still far too many.

Just one was too many.

It was easy to look at statistics and feel smug about them. Hide behind them. Much harder to look at a dead teenager who had wanted to be a doctor, murdered for trying to walk his girlfriend home. Murdered, most likely, by a group of youths so dispossessed by society that this was their vile, pathetic way of achieving some kind of status.

Murdered, by default, by a succession of governments whose politicians were just not interested in understanding the different strata of society they were responsible for.

The pooled blood was black beneath the harsh glare of the lights.

Black like the dead youth’s skin.

Black would give the politicians all kinds of mealy-mouthed excuses to explain about divided communities.

Bollocks.

This dead young person, with his £200 trainers and his ambition to be a doctor, deserved better than the hand he’d been dealt.

Failure. He looked at the boy, thinking, Failure by all of us to create a society that recognized your ambition and talent.

Shit. Grace knew how awful it was to tell a parent that their child would never come home again. A dreadful thing.

He turned away, his eyes stinging with salty tears.

22

Friday 3 May

Many criminal law barristers worked long hours for a relatively modest living, frequently alternating between prosecuting and defending. But some, like Primrose Brown, had carved a niche for themselves through winning high-profile trials for their clients against the odds – clients who were only too aware that no price was too steep to pay for freedom.