‘Can I help you?’ Kimberley Cidre had a strong Belfast accent. I suspected Cidre was not her maiden name.

I identified myself and asked about the phones.

‘They’re a total loss,’ she said. ‘At first we thought the batteries had been completely drained, but when we changed them they still didn’t work. That’s when we took them apart. We tested all the ICs independently and they were all inoperable.’

‘Was there any visible damage?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No obvious sign of physical damage at all.’

‘Have you looked at them under a microscope?’

There was a pause.

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘What would I be looking for?’

The trouble with scientists is that you can’t blind them with science, unless you know more than they do – which, by definition, I didn’t.

‘I don’t want to prejudice the results,’ I said, which is always a good standby. ‘But if you spot something, I’d like to send pictures to a specialist in London to have a look.’

‘What kind of specialist?’

Explaining that Dr Walid was a world renowned enterologist would probably just raise more questions than it answered.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m just the police, but if we find what we looking for I’ll have him call you and explain. How about that?’

There was quite a long pause.

‘Is this something to do with UFOs?’ asked Cidre.

‘No,’ I said with complete honesty, for a change. ‘Do you get a lot of UFOs up here?’

‘We get a lot of UFO spotters and a lot of sightings,’ she said. ‘These two facts may be related.’

‘As far as I know there are no UFOs involved,’ I said. ‘But if we find one, I’ll let you know.’

Cidre agreed to check the microprocessors and email me images of anything she found.

Looking back, I could have possibly been a little bit firmer about the non-involvement of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Even when you’re part of the investigation you don’t just turn up on the doorstep of a victim’s parents, start asking questions and poking around their bookshelves. First I had to clear the action with DCI Windrow, who told me to clear it with DC Henry Carter who was the lead FLO attached to the Laceys. There was a delay while DC Carter checked with DS Cole as to whether I could be trusted or not – obviously I could, because Windrow gave his blessing. But only if either DS Cole or Carter was with me to hold Victoria Lacey’s hand.