He took the empty chair next to Carmella and waited for his boss to begin.

‘First,’ she said, ‘I want you to know that the Commissioner has spoken to me this morning. He backs us, he understands why we have pursued the investigation in the way we have, and he asked me to pass on his gratitude for finding Liam McConnell.’

Patrick nodded, trying to ignore Winkler. If he didn’t remove that smirk from his face soon . . .

Suzanne went on. ‘But the media are not congratulating us on the good news. They want to know why we have failed to find Frankie Philips, and how we can justify our officers shooting two people dead.’

‘Who can blame them?’ asked Winkler.

Carmella swivelled in her chair and glared at him. ‘I suppose you knew we were going down the wrong path with Frankie all along but chose not to say anything, huh?’

‘Well, if I’d been leading this investigation you can bet your beautiful ass I would have made damn sure the cases were connected. I wouldn’t have just assumed.’

Carmella’s mouth dropped open and she pointed a finger in Winkler’s smug face. ‘My beautiful ass? I can’t believe you—’

Suzanne banged her desk. ‘Enough! Adrian, lay off the sexist bullshit. And Carmella, I want you to calm down. This is not the time for us to start blaming one another.’

‘But we didn’t blame him,’ Carmella protested, her voice rising an octave. ‘There hasn’t been anything to blame him for because he’s done sweet FA in this investigation.’

‘That’s what you think,’ Winkler muttered.

‘Both of you – stop. Now.’

Patrick had never seen the DCI so angry. Her face was scarlet. They were all losing the plot, the whole team.

‘How can we be sure that Koppler and Fredericks didn’t take Frankie?’ Carmella asked. ‘Maybe they killed her and her body is somewhere else, like Isabel’s was?’

Sadness replaced the anger on Suzanne’s face. ‘Not unless they never took her to the house and didn’t use either of their cars. The SOCOs were working all night. They’ve been through the house and both cars. Fredericks’ house too. There’s no evidence at all that Frankie had any contact with them.’

‘Like I said,’ Winkler piped up. ‘You were barking up the wrong tree all along.’

Carmella visibly bristled but Suzanne said, ‘We were all barking up the wrong tree. We don’t have unlimited resources. We were absolutely right to follow the path we did.’

She looked at Patrick. He hadn’t spoken throughout this whole exchange. ‘Isn’t that right, Patrick?’ she said.

‘No,’ he replied.

The other three stared at him.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said, looking down so he couldn’t see what would no doubt be an expression of surprised delight on Winkler’s face.

‘What are you talking about?’ Suzanne asked.