But his pacifism could be as hypocritical as the next person’s, Hanson thought. He might believe in non-violence until pushed, and it sounded as though Alex had done a lot of things his husband might have objected to that Friday night.

‘Issa has also been spending a lot of time hanging around Saints Close,’ the chief said. ‘O’Malley had him back there this morning, until April Dumont arrived and chased him away.’

‘Did we check for his car reg on the ANPRs?’ Hanson asked.

‘We did,’ Lightman said. ‘His car wasn’t flagged anywhere on Friday night, but I’m going to check Alex’s car, too. He would have had access to it.’

There was a pause, and the DCI said, ‘OK. I’d like to look at him more closely. There could be reasons for his behaviour other than grief.’

Hanson nodded, and returned to what she had been doing with a new sense of significance. If Alex had sent a message about the knife before they’d given it to Step, Issa might have known about it. Particularly if, as a jealous husband, he was looking at Alex’s phone to see if he’d cheated again.

There were thirteen WhatsApp strings on Alex’s phone on the right dates, she discovered. He’d been a fairly heavy phone user.

Several of the strings, she dismissed immediately. One to Issa she hesitated over, but then moved on. Alex wouldn’t have sent his husband a photo of a knife he was hoping to hide. It made no sense.

And then she saw a group chat from the twelfth with the names Marc and Chez, and she opened it with a feeling of buzzing excitement.

There were only a few messages on it. The first was from Alex to the rest of the group, and said:

Look at this Polish beauty! Absolutely psyched for Saturday.

Beneath the words, an icon showed that there was an image attached to the message. Hanson clicked on it and sighed as her screen was filled with a large photo. The knife was identical to their murder weapon.

With perfect timing, the phone on her desk rang the moment she opened her mouth to tell the chief.

‘DC Hanson,’ she said, trying not to sound irritable.

‘Hi,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘It’s – it’s Phoebe Plaskitt. I hope it’s OK … I have something I really want to tell you.’

There was a shake to Phoebe’s voice, a sense of stress that cut through Hanson’s annoyance.

‘Of course. Anything you have to say is helpful,’ she replied, pulling her notepad towards her.