She’d said very little to Will before he accompanied her to the press room to ready the Watson family. They had been incredible. Jordan was a formidable young man and she felt his agony. She also saw that he hated being treated like a victim: he wanted answers and she intended to make every effort to get them. Millie was sweet and very like Josie. They were both teenagers in need of space, a voice and someone to pick up the pieces. Josie had found that with her father and with Kelly. Millie had had her support ripped away when it was most important. Away from the press, Kelly had chatted to her, and Millie had opened up about her father. She gave the impression that he wasn’t coping nearly as well as he was letting on. Kelly reassured her that it was normal. She’d given Millie her personal mobile number.

Back in the incident room, the investigation ran along and no one would ever guess that Kelly was questioning the loyalty of those surrounding her. They all acknowledged her and gave her updates on what they were working on. This was usually the stage where things got busy and information began to produce results that all had to be chased. The first forty-eight hours were crucial for gathering evidence, but the processing took time and patience. She set a briefing meeting for later and went to her office.

The handling of the fallout of Op Eagle was not her concern. She’d read the transcripts of the interviews with people who’d been arrested for various offences during the raids. None of them were pertinent to her own investigation. Seven of them were still in custody, but their twenty-four-hour window without charges was dwindling, and most of them had replied ‘no comment’ to every question put to them, as was their right. The local solicitors had had a field day counting the fees that legal aid would provide. The innocent had to be proven guilty by the police, and if they weren’t, then they were free to go. Instinct didn’t count, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time didn’t prove guilt by association. It was a shotgun operation and they’d lost the advantage. Maybe Ormond was in the first stages of dementia after all.

To distract herself, she sat at her desk and opened the log of what had been sent to the lab from both murder cases, sighing when she saw the sheer number of reference codes. She decided to throw herself into some work before she briefed the team, as she did every day when working a serious crime.