‘You can see from the photo that she’s still wearing her watch and expensive rings, and her iPhone X is still in the running wallet. No robbery.’ Nobody spoke. ‘Mr Watson has been informed that they’ll have to vacate the family home while we undertake a thorough forensic search. If I can, I’ll organise it for first thing tomorrow. The warrant has already been requested. Kate, I want you to coordinate the land searches and door-to-door witness statements. Will, you and I will continue to dig around into violent crime and policing on the Beacon Estate. Rob, can you work on an interactive map of the estate and Potton Park. And Emma, can you coordinate the physical evidence and liaise with the labs; also collate all the information from the two house searches this morning – they should have both been completed. I think that’s all for now.’

Her team dissipated and Kelly went to her office and logged on to her computer to finish the report. A police underwater search team from Lancaster had replied to her email and said they could schedule a search of the pond first thing tomorrow. She replied telling them the rendezvous point. They could be there at 10 a.m.

She also had an email from Superintendent Neil Ormond at HQ. A quick glance at it left her speechless. Neil Ormond had been on the force for the whole of Kelly’s life. He was a giant man with keen eyes who sucked up the air in a room. He wasn’t known for his by-the-book approach but more for his opinionated damnation of do-gooders. She reread the email and stared at the screen.

Neil Ormond and Thomas Watson were golfing buddies.

Several problems swirled around her head. One was the huge conflict of interest. A plus side was that it might mean sudden miraculous funding for policing the Beacon Estate.

But what really bothered her was the super’s language. He referred to Ella Watson as a ‘respectable, law-abiding woman’ and Kelly couldn’t help thinking that if the victim had been a lowlife from the estate, he would have considered that she’d deserved her fate. It reminded her of the Yorkshire Ripper case, when the victims weren’t taken so seriously due to their immoral activities as supposed prostitutes. Peter Sutcliffe got away with his crimes for years longer than he should have.

HOLMES, the pithy and conveniently memorable acronym for the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, came into use as a direct result of that case, which had generated so many leads that it was estimated it would have taken decades to plough through them had Sutcliffe not been finally picked up on a minor traffic offence and confessed. It was a period in the force that had changed everything. The fact that Kelly was standing here today, leading a serious crime unit rather than making the tea, was down to that case.