‘I’m sure she’ll be heading home soon,’ O’Malley said, not too concerned whether or not this was true.

‘You’d better listen to me and let her go home,’ April said, with a little steel, ‘or I’m going to come down there myself.’

‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ O’Malley told her.

Jonah tried to fill some time while waiting for his team to update him. As much as he valued the space to think during investigations, there were too many gaps in his knowledge to get to grips with it all, and the two other cases on their books from the week before were at similar stages, without the sense of urgency of a murder.

He decided to look at some of the earlier video footage sent over by Charlie as a starting point. It was all filmed from the same spot close to the door, and caught everyone entering and exiting. It was largely uninteresting, except for a brief brawl at eleven fifty. Then, at twelve ten, Step Conti appeared. He was markedly more sober than anyone except the staff. Jonah noted the time down and switched the video off a few minutes later.

At three he decided to chase up the technical team about Alex’s phone. He suspected that they would now be waiting another day. Getting the civilian parts of the force to come in on days off and work swiftly was a constant challenge. Only Janet McCullough would generally show willing, thanks to her obsessive attitude towards her work.

‘We’re nearly done,’ a begrudging Intelligence officer told him. ‘I’ll send it to you as soon as it’s ready.’

Jonah hung up with a rare feeling of satisfaction. DCS Wilkinson must have done a good job of leaning on them.

He spent a few minutes writing up his notes on Louise’s interview, and headed back out to CID. Lightman was back at his desk, and Hanson was making her way back over with Jason Walker, who had presumably met up with her outside rather than going along for the ride.

Jonah arrived at Lightman’s desk at the same time Hanson did, and watched in some amusement as Jason melted away, and Hanson blushed very slightly.

‘How was the sister?’ he asked them both.

‘She had a few things to say,’ Lightman said, thoughtfully. ‘She’s not on great terms with the victim’s husband because Issa apparently wanted Alex to stop doing his fitness videos. He disliked the trolling. Phoebe Plaskitt refused to take Issa’s side.’

‘She described her brother much as Step Conti did,’ Hanson added. ‘Alex was a patient, protective person who generally defused fights rather than getting into them.’

Jonah nodded again, digesting this, and then asked O’Malley for an update on April Dumont.