She dragged a clean trouser suit out of the wardrobe, grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste, and took them all downstairs with her. She snapped the kettle on and dressed quickly while it boiled. She threw instant granules into her thermos mug and dumped boiling water and milk on top, then went to grab her shoes. She’d left her socks upstairs, she realised. It wasn’t the weather to do without, and she ran up to grab the thickest pair she could find. She was fully dressed and standing at the front door by 6:53, her blonde hair pulled back into an untidy bun that would just have to do.

She paused with her hand on the bolt of the door. She needed a moment to prepare, mentally, for the few steps to her car. Climbing into the vehicle quickly meant having her keys ready. Her bag looped over her shoulder just right. Her movements planned out.

She was pretty sure there would be nobody out there today. Who would want to hang around her house before dawn on a freezing morning? But she was going to make sure, anyway.

She’d developed a habit of pulling the door shut as she moved off the doorstep, letting the Yale lock click into place, and it was so practised that she didn’t even need to think about it today. She checked right and left as she approached the car, too, which she had reversed up as close to the porch as possible. There were no footsteps in the snow, she saw. No sign of anyone close by.

It took five paces to get to the driver’s door, and she had the car unlocked on pace number two. By pace number three she was pretty sure that she was alone, but she kept moving at speed anyway. She didn’t pause until she was inside the car with the doors locked and the engine running.

She spent a moment, after that, doing nothing more than breathing in and out. She hated that she felt like this. She hated, too, that it was almost worse when he wasn’t waiting in the shadows than when he was.

DCI Jonah Sheens was buzzing with curiosity as he pulled his Mondeo into Saints Close. He’d been sad to climb out of Jojo Magos’s warm bed, and to miss their one lazy morning together. He also felt a little grubby in yesterday’s shirt and trousers. But overriding these considerations was keen interest. An unidentified man at a residential house. A death. All the questions that went with it.

Saints Close turned out to be a meandering little group of sixties houses off Belmont Road. Chunky detached buildings with decent-sized gardens out at the front. A place of solid salaries. But nothing particularly flashy. No million-pound piles. Volkswagens rather than Audis parked up in driveways.