The pressure was now on to pin this thing down, and soon. They might only have twenty-four hours to charge Louise Reakes with murder. But Jonah had already applied to the superintendent for an extension to the standard twenty-four-hour limit. He was asking for an initial thirty-six hours, but fully intended to apply to the magistrates’ court for the maximum after that, which was ninety-six. Given the seriousness of the crime, with the added charge of perverting the course of justice, it was highly likely they’d be granted their request.

If, in the next ninety-six hours, they could prove that the blood on the bed was Alex’s – which was the only reasonable explanation – then they would almost certainly have passed the threshold for Louise to be prosecuted. They could charge her knowing that the prosecutor would be happy to work with them to obtain further proof. Which was satisfying, but it wasn’t enough.

As far as Jonah was concerned, within those ninety-six hours they needed to know whether she really had killed him and why. Because although the circumstances and her actions pointed that way, there were an awful lot of unanswered questions.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ Lightman said, quietly, a few minutes after he and Hanson had returned to their desks.

Hanson looked at him in surprise as he smiled at her. Was this banter? With the exception of their car journey, Ben hadn’t offered anything like that in months.

Recovering, she asked, mock-seriously, ‘Is it a cake? Please let it be a cake.’

Ben smiled more widely, and shook his head. ‘Sadly not. But it is great.’ He leaned across the desk. ‘As well as being a solo harpist, Louise Reakes is a member of a harp ensemble. They’re called, get this, the Mother Pluckers.’

Hanson gave a delighted laugh, in part at the name and in part because he really was bantering again. ‘All right, that is genuinely almost as good as cake. Are they all mums or something?’

‘Looks like it,’ he agreed. ‘There are loads of cheerful and not-at-all-posed pictures of them with their children. Louise seems to be the odd one out.’

‘I have to look at this,’ Hanson said, and was in the process of typing it into Google when the DCI emerged.

‘Louise Reakes’s solicitor’s just arrived downstairs,’ Sheens told them. ‘I’ll give them a quarter of an hour to get their ducks in a row and then we can head in, Ben.’