He thinks back to how it used to be, how much she did for him in the past. He was a scared sixteen-year-old. A child, forced into becoming an adult before he was ready. He can still see the light that sparkled on her face then even as it does now, only back then it was the reflected light of a glitter ball, and the electric-blue glow of the alcopop in his hands. He doesn’t know how she found him, but then it’s hard to lose yourself in a community as small as the Sheffield scene. Hard to lose yourself, but easy to be lost.

It had been just six weeks since the death of his father. Six weeks of hedonistic excess. Drinking in bars and clubs, talking to other lost souls. Accepting the kindnesses of strangers, though they weren’t always that kind. Six weeks living out of a rucksack, and sleeping on floors and in beds of varying degrees of warmth, simply because he couldn’t bear to go home.

He doesn’t remember exactly how she convinced him to go with her, but somehow she did. Then she helped him pull himself back together, taught him how to go on. He has no doubt that without her his life would now be very different, assuming he still had one. And this is how he repays her.

“You know what happens next?” Jordan asks.

“You’re suspending me,” he says.

“I don’t have any choice.”

“I understand.”

She escorts him to the door. She pauses before she opens it and says, “I’ll do what I can.”

“I know,” he tells her. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He isn’t sure it’s worth much.

Doggett is waiting outside. They fall into step together and walk down the corridor. After a moment or two Doggett says, “Did Cartwright know who you were when you met him?”

Tyler says nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“A friend of mine set us up. I didn’t know that until last night.”

They walk on in silence for a few minutes and then Doggett says, “Elliot ID’d the second body.”

Tyler stops. “Cynthia Cartwright?”

Doggett nods. “Oscar’s mother. Strangled. The body was so well preserved they even got DNA from under the fingernails. Gerald’s. I’m not sure it would hold up in court, but it’s good enough for me.”

“So Gerald killed his wife and buried her in the cellar. That means Edna Burnside lied to us. She must have known what happened. Helped him cover up Cynthia’s disappearance.”

“All that business about a bloody phone call. Then Oscar finds out and takes his revenge. Bricks his dad up in the same cellar where his mother’s buried. Then the old dears help him cover that up as well.”

He wonders if Doggett is really asking his opinion. He gives it anyway. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Oscar hired the builders who unearthed the body. Why would he do that if he knew what they’d find?”