Liam gets up and Robin watches him as he goes to the fridge. His brother-in-law looks skinnier than he ever has, but in considerably better shape than Robin. And the house is tidy, at least reasonably so.

‘You seem to be doing okay,’ Robin says as Liam comes back, handing him a beer and taking a swig from one himself. ‘I mean, that’s a good thing.’

‘One day at a time,’ Liam says. ‘You want to watch the football?’

And, conversation over, they do. But even before half time, Robin is fast asleep on his brother-in-law’s sofa. Like so many days from the past.

Now, sitting in Baker’s office, he knows things could have been considerably worse. Freya’s holding it together; Baker seems to know nothing. Everything forensics have found supports their theory that they were right to try to nail Amy Miller for the murder. And Baker seems happy.

‘Right, then,’ their DCI says, putting both hands on the desk and leaning towards them. ‘CPS are happy to leave all this as is. Amy Miller is never going to be tried for her husband’s murder, but justice is served as far as they’re concerned. Now, if we could all go back to work, and you could apply some of that dedication to the unsolved cases you have piling up on your desk, Robin, everyone will be happy.

‘So, DS Butler, is this over? Will you leave this alone now?’

Robin looks to Freya, and she gives a slight nod.

He looks back at his boss. ‘Yes, guv. Absolutely.’

Robin walks with Freya back to the incident room. He stops her in the doorway, his hand on her arm. Since discovering Amy Miller’s death Saturday morning, he’s been over it a million times in his head. They have no proof she killed her husband. A charred plastic bag and some tape won’t convict someone for murder. No CCTV, no traffic cams, no evidence of a body transported in the back of a van. Just eyewitness reports confirming Jonathan Miller at a party, and the testimony of a man racked with guilt, with a past of heavy drug use and now a stint in a mental institution. Amy Miller would have walked free, exactly as Trevor Stevens did, that day. Both murderers, both having killed people they loved. And both likely to do it again.

They didn’t kill Amy Miller on Friday night, but it isn’t a bad thing she has died.

He doesn’t say any of this to Freya. He says nothing, except, ‘You okay?’

She looks awful, heavy black smudges under her eyes, hair pulled back untidily from her face.

‘Didn’t sleep,’ she says.

‘It wasn’t our fault.’ Freya doesn’t reply. ‘It wasn’t,’ Robin continues. ‘We weren’t to know she’d have an accident. She’d probably wandered round that house drugged up to her eyeballs a thousand times.’

‘Yes, but—’