‘Not at all, I rather like it,’ Kelly said. ‘Any more than usual? What are the stats that we don’t know about?’ She was referring to crime that didn’t get picked up by an investigative team – such as complaints and disturbances not likely to be charged – or non-serious crime dealt with by uniforms. Non-serious crime could mean anything from burglary to buggery, all depending on if it was reported, and by whom.

‘Very little goes beyond the initial responder. There are plenty of burglaries, domestics, sexual assaults, actual assaults and general shit like drug abuse and kids pissing around, but that’s as far as it goes; no one wants to press charges or give evidence. It’s frustrating. It makes it difficult to gain a clear picture at all.’

‘And demoralising, I expect?’ Kelly asked.

‘Exactly,’ Will agreed.

‘Has lethargy set in? Do squad cars even go there much?’ It was a serious question.

Will didn’t answer. It said everything.

‘So who’s in charge?’ she asked.

Will looked uncomfortable. Kelly waited.

‘There’s a few main players who are what you might term untouchable,’ he said eventually.

‘Untouchable? Jesus. Is it the Wild West?’ Kelly got up and went to a swivel chair, sitting down hard in it and spinning around, looking at the map. She was hungry and tired. Her holiday had lulled her into a false sense of life being easy. It wasn’t that long until Christmas, and a year since her mother had died.

‘Foot patrols?’ she asked.

‘Cutbacks. The odd patrol drives through. I believe there is a network of informants.’

Kelly made a note to ask around at HQ about registered confidential informants relating to the Beacon Estate. Snouts and narks were usually paid handsomely, but they were becoming rarer, due to the dangers associated with being a rat. The whole system had also become heavily regulated, rendering it somewhat ineffectual since the days of The Sweeney. But if Will said it went on, then she trusted him.

‘Has anyone else anything to add?’ she asked.

No one answered.

‘Right, let’s be clear. Here’s my crime-scene assessment.’ She stood up and went to her laptop. The lights went back on. She’d mentally prepared for what she wanted out of her team, and this was where the investigation began. She brought up the CSA, the document that every detective in charge of a crime scene had to process. It was seventy pages long. She wasn’t about to bore them with vehicle interiors, entomology or the absence of fire damage, which everyone knew to be irrelevant for Ella; however, there were some pertinent points to be noted.