‘I had my eyes tested a couple of months ago,’ Roy retorted facetiously. His phone pinged with the voicemail tone.

Pewe stared at him for some moments. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny? You seem to be quite the comedian recently.’

‘I don’t find anything funny about murder – sir.’

‘Which is what you think we have here?’

Keeping his patience, Grace answered, ‘That’s how the evidence is pointing. Unless you have a better theory – something you feel I’ve missed, perhaps?’

Pewe, riled by Grace’s attitude and perhaps, Grace thought, by his own misjudgement of the situation, waved a dismissive hand. ‘Go, get on with it.’ The ACC tapped his keyboard and leaned forward dismissively, absorbed once more in whatever was on his screen.

Interview over.

As Roy Grace left the room, closing the door behind him and stepping onto the landing, he was anxious to check his phones and see who had been trying to contact him so persistently. With the offices of the Chief Constable, the Deputy CC and the two other ACCs around him, as well as those of Pewe’s shared staff officer and his PA, he was conscious of his total lack of privacy. Pulling out his job phone, he was about to press the voicemail button when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

Two uniformed officers, wearing the white caps of the Road Policing Unit, appeared with grave expressions. He recognized both of them. PCs Trundle and Edwards.

‘Sir,’ Trundle said. ‘We were told we’d find you here.’

Always friendly and respectful on the previous occasions they’d met, their demeanour now made his stomach churn with anxiety as if a barrel of icy water had been tipped over inside him. It was an old police saw that two officers in white caps, knocking on your door in the middle of the night, was never going to be good news. Nor in the middle of the morning.

‘Richard,’ he said, his voice trembling uncharacteristically. ‘Hi.’

Oh God, had something happened to Cleo on her way to work?

‘Pip – what – what brings you guys to these hallowed halls?’

‘We need to speak to you, sir,’ Trundle said. ‘Can we go somewhere private – downstairs perhaps?’

‘Yes – yes. Of course.’

He followed them back down the stairs and they stopped in the hallway. Closed doors lined the corridor along it.

Something was badly wrong.

Please God let Cleo be all right.

‘Sir,’ Trundle said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you – your son, Bruno, has been involved in a road traffic collision.’

It took some moments for the words to sink in.

‘What? I dropped him off at school. I saw him go in. You must be mistaken – I mean – there’s no way – he’s in class all day.’

‘He was identified at the scene, sir. We asked one of the teachers – we knew he was from the school because of his uniform.’

Roy leaned against a wall, feeling hollowed out. ‘Identified? At the scene? Teacher? What – is – I – what do you mean?’