For the first time in six weeks, the team did pub night. The DCI always took himself off after the first forty-five minutes, in some sort of deference to them wanting to kick back and enjoy themselves. Before he left, however, he caught Hanson on her own.

‘I don’t want to pry into anything,’ he said, ‘but it’s come to my attention that you may be having a few issues with an ex-boyfriend.’

Hanson could feel her cheeks heating up from the moment he started speaking. But it was right that he should know what was going on.

‘Unfortunately he’s been stalking me, slandering me and vandalising my property, so I’ve had to report him,’ she said.

Hanson guessed that Chief Inspector Heerden had mentioned the case to the chief. Heerden had probably felt that she had to. Hanson was eager, however, for the whole situation to be handled by the uniformed police. The idea of it landing somewhere within CID, with the people she worked with every day, was agonising.

There shouldn’t be any need for them to get involved, anyway. There was little investigating that needed to be done. Jason had written a summary of his conversation at the pub, including all of Damian’s allegations about her. It had been awkward asking him for it while they existed in such an unresolved state, but he had been eager to help. Ben had, of course, provided an account of Damian’s presence on the evening of the arson. And Hanson also had her own diary entries, detailing almost all of the grim reality of being harassed.

None of which might have been enough if Damian hadn’t petrol-bombed her house. She still found herself smiling whenever she thought about it. It was the one real mistake he’d made, presumably triggered by anger that she still had her job and was being protected by her colleagues.

She’d asked for a quiet chat with Lightman the morning after. It had been hard not to grin at him as she shut the door of the meeting room behind her. Despite a large hole being smashed in her window, and a similar hole bored through her night’s sleep, she’d felt more energised than she had in months.

‘I’m going to report Damian,’ she said. ‘Today, if possible. Would you be able to write up the conversation you had with him outside the station yesterday? I’d like to link his behaviour with it.’

‘What behaviour is that?’ he asked.

She told him, in a few words, about the night-time vandalism.

‘Which means we’ve got him,’ she said, her eyes bright with exhilaration. ‘I caught the whole thing on camera, by making him feel clever.’

Lightman narrowed his eyes at her. ‘The fake cameras …’