‘We found a second blood trace at the scene,’ Naylor added. ‘Not matched to Ben Delaney. We’re still working on tying that sample to a suspect.’

Larssen wrote something else on his pad and circled it.

‘Sure. What else?’ he said, in a tone that suggested he thought the DNA match was nothing to worry about. I couldn’t believe how calm he was.

‘DNA at the scene is number one,’ Naylor said. ‘Number two was also found at the scene.’

He produced a clear plastic evidence bag from his folder, and laid it on the table.

Chapter 58

58

There was something thin and black inside the evidence bag. Circular. The right size to fit around a wrist. A leather bracelet. My bracelet. The one that Mel had given to me on our third wedding anniversary. I’d lost it in the scuffle with Ben on Thursday night.

‘Evidence item four-four-one-nine-six-slash-A is shown to the suspect,’ Naylor said. ‘This item, a bracelet, was recovered from the scene and it also has traces of Mr Delaney’s blood on it. Do you recognise the bracelet?’

‘My client has no comment,’ Larssen said, without looking up from his pad.

‘Sure?’ Naylor asked me.

I said nothing.

‘I was rather hoping that Mr Lynch would recognise it. Because he posted a message on Facebook about losing it on Thursday night.’

‘That was Ben,’ I said.

‘When he supposedly hacked your account?’

‘Yes. I lost my phone, he must have picked it up.’

‘Where?’

Larssen shot me a look and said: ‘No comment.’

‘Is that why you deleted the message later?’

I said nothing.

‘It’s an obvious thing, but we can often learn more from the messages a person thinks they’ve deleted than from the ones they leave up. In fact you deleted two Facebook messages you posted on Thursday night.’

‘I didn’t –’

‘My client has no comment,’ Larssen interrupted.

‘Of course, nothing’s ever really deleted, you know.’ Naylor said. ‘From anywhere. There’s always an electronic footprint. A record on a computer server somewhere in the world. Imagine that. Every message you ever sent, every website you ever visited, every picture you upload, every post on social media. Everything. The amount of information people are putting out into the public domain about themselves today . . . it’s unprecedented in human history. It’s all out there, all that data about you, stored forever. It’s just a case of knowing where to look.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And our technical people are very good at knowing where to look. It’s a gold mine, as far as law enforcement goes.’

‘The thing about a gold mine,’ Larssen said, ‘is you generally just end up with lots of worthless rock to show for your trouble.’