There was a momentary silence, and Hanson said, ‘If he had predatory intentions, why didn’t he leave with her? She was drunk enough. Do we even know she was still in sight once he’d left?’

Jonah gave a wry smile. ‘You think the predatory male idea doesn’t fit?’

‘Not really,’ Hanson replied. ‘And to be honest, no kind of violence seems to fit with what we know of his character. It’s hard to even imagine him fighting to defend someone. I mean … I’ve seen him throw a strop on camera at his own uselessness, but I just don’t see him attacking Louise.’

‘There’s also the high quality and high price tag of the knife to consider,’ Jonah added. ‘Those features point to something.’

‘Someone who owns it because they get a kick out of it,’ O’Malley said, immediately. ‘They enjoy using it.’

‘Or at least someone who enjoys the idea of using it,’ Lightman offered. ‘A gang member might own a weapon like that to up his power to intimidate.’

Jonah nodded again. The city’s gang culture was depressingly strong, and it was generally an angle they considered in most cases.

‘Can we match any of that up with any of our suspects?’ Jonah asked.

There was a long silence, and Jonah knew they were mulling over Louise Reakes, Step Conti, Niall Reakes and Issa Benhawy with the same lack of conviction that he was. None of them seemed likely to be criminals of any kind.

‘What about April Dumont?’ Lightman asked, thoughtfully.

‘As a gang member?’ O’Malley asked. ‘I mean … maybe, but I’d doubt it.’ He paused, and then went on, ‘She is awfully protective of her friend, though. She might have thought Alex was threatening her.’

‘But then,’ Hanson replied, ‘if she killed him to protect her, why would she leave Louise to deal with the body?’

‘Fair point,’ O’Malley said, with a shrug. ‘But it would make sense of Louise trying to cover it all up.’

‘So,’ Jonah said, ‘that basically leaves us needing to know a lot more about our group of involved people. But it also means we should keep the possibility of an unknown attacker in mind. If Alex Plaskitt really was stabbed by someone with a fetish for knives, it could have happened while Louise Reakes was unconscious. She might only have left the door unlocked and suffered the consequences.’

Jonah could feel his team’s reaction to this idea. Or at least O’Malley and Hanson’s reaction. It would be a huge blow if Louise turned out to be uninvolved when they’d worked hard both to bring her in and to win as much custody time as possible.